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Top Questions

What is a zoot suit?

Where did the zoot suit originate?

What famous individuals are associated with wearing zoot suits?

What were the Zoot Suit Riots?

zoot suit, a flamboyantly styled men’s suit consisting of a thigh-length jacket with wide padded shoulders and sprawling lapels, along with high-waisted balloon-leg pants with narrow cuffs, often accessorized with a wide-brimmed fedora-like hat. The suit gained popularity initially among young Black men in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood in the 1930s before being adopted by Mexican Americans in California. Called the first truly American suit, it would become a symbol of division during World War II, sparking what would become known as the Zoot Suit Riots.

History

The exact beginnings of the zoot suit are murky, and the origin stories are myriad. In the book Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style (2011), author and historian Kathy Peiss traces its creation to tailors in Harlem, who began making them in the mid- to late 1930s. Peiss claims the suit’s name may have come from rhyming slang spoken in the African American community at the time. The suit may have been modeled after the London drape suits worn by Prince Edward, duke of Windsor.

Another origin story for the zoot suit credits Chicago clothier and jazz band leader Harold C. Fox. Fox designed wild suits and band uniforms for musician friends in New York before moving back to Chicago to run his father’s clothing business. He started producing and selling the suits in 1939. His daughter said he gave the suit its rhyming name because he considered the suit the “coolest” or “the end of all ends,” symbolized by the letter z. Fox added a dangling chain after a customer requested an accessory for the suit. Using a broken toilet-flushing chain, he hooked one end to the customer’s pants and placed the other end in a pocket.

The suit’s creation has also been attributed to Clyde Duncan, a busboy who ordered a custom suit in Georgia in 1940. Perhaps aspiring to look like Rhett Butler (played by Clark Gable) from the film Gone with the Wind (1939), Duncan requested a long coat and narrow-cuffed trousers. According to journalist Meyer Berger, the suit so startled the clothier in Gainesville that he sent a picture of it to Men’s Apparel Reporter magazine, and the photo was published in the February 1941 issue.

Rise in popularity

“Perhaps the zoot suit conceals profound political meaning; perhaps the symmetrical frenzy of the Lindy-hop conceals clues to great potential power.” —Ralph Ellison, 1943

The oversize nature of the zoot suit, with its wide shoulders and roomy tapered-ankle pants, made it perfect for doing the jitterbug and other emerging swing dances. It allowed men to move their bodies freely without getting tripped up by their trousers. Some of the jazz greats of the time, including Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Duke Ellington, often wore them. The suit’s reach went beyond the music scene: Future activists Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez wore them. And in Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel, Invisible Man, the nameless protagonist encounters a group of men wearing zoot suits and notes, “It was as though I’d never seen their like before.”

The suit’s popularity spread to the Southwest and the West Coast when Mexican and Filipino Americans adopted the jazz music of African Americans, along with the suit. In particular, the Mexican American youth subculture known as pachuco became synonymous with the suit, worn as a way to protest Mexican and white American traditions. Pachucos donned the suits to signal their identity as members of a proud subculture. But the youths were associated with street gangs in some circles, and the suit sparked negative, often racist associations.

The suit’s decline

Midway through World War II, the U.S. federal government initiated a rationing system to conserve crucial supplies for war efforts. In 1942 the newly established War Production Board limited the amount of wool that could be used in clothing. While many bootleg tailors continued to make zoot suits, white Americans increasingly viewed the suits as unpatriotic, thinking that those who wore them were intentionally disregarding rationing regulations.

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In Los Angeles racial tensions escalated, and baseless rumors spread throughout the city portraying pachucos as gang members and criminals. On May 31, 1943, a fight broke out among a group of 12 U.S. Navy servicemen on shore leave and Mexican American teenagers wearing zoot suits, resulting in the injury of a sailor. The cause of the fight is unknown, but it prompted approximately 50 local sailors from the U.S. Naval Reserve Armory to form a vigilante group and march through downtown Los Angeles on June 3 with clubs and other crude weapons, including what was called a “zootbeater,” a two-by-four with nails, to retaliate against anyone wearing a zoot suit.

That was the start of the series of conflicts called the Zoot Suit Riots. Over the next several days, zoot-suiters were beaten and had their suits forcefully removed to be urinated on or burned. The rioting escalated and had spread to other neighborhoods surrounding Los Angeles by June 7 before military officials declared Los Angeles off-limits to all servicemen and ordered military police to arrest disorderly members on June 8, putting an end to the riots. Although no one was killed, many people were injured. Mexican Americans significantly outnumbered servicemen among those arrested.

By the 1950s, the zoot suit fad had waned and fashion had moved on. However, the suit has continued to influence new fashions and popular culture over the years.

The suit in popular culture

Many entertainers have paid tribute to the suit. The Who’s first single, “Zoot Suit,” released under the band name the High Numbers, debuted in 1964. In 1979 playwright Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit, starring a young Edward James Olmos, became the first play by a Chicano writer to make it to Broadway, and it was released as a movie in 1981. The American swing revival band Cherry Poppin’ Daddies released the catchy hit song “Zoot Suit Riot” on its namesake album in 1997. The suit has appeared in a number of movies and music videos, and the rise of hip-hop in the 1980s ushered in a reimagining of the flamboyant, flowing fashion that became similarly polarizing.

Laura Payne
Quick Facts
Date:
June 3, 1943 - June 10, 1943

Zoot Suit Riots, a series of conflicts that occurred in June 1943 in Los Angeles between U.S. servicemen and Mexican American youths, the latter of whom wore outfits called zoot suits. The zoot suit consisted of a broad-shouldered drape jacket, balloon-leg trousers, and, sometimes, a flamboyant hat. Mexican and Mexican American youths who wore these outfits were called zoot-suiters. These individuals referred to themselves as pachucos, a name linked to the Mexican American generation’s rebellion against both the Mexican and American cultures.

Prelude to the riots

Pressures related to U.S. involvement in World War II contributed to the racial tensions that preceded the riots. Workers were needed in the agricultural and service sectors of the United States to fill the jobs vacated by those who were serving in the military. An agreement was reached with Mexico whereby temporary workers from Mexico were brought into the United States. This influx of Mexican workers was not particularly welcomed by white Americans.

As part of the war effort, by March 1942 the United States had begun rationing various resources. Restrictions on wool had a direct effect on the manufacture of wool suits and other clothing. There were regulations prohibiting the manufacturing of zoot suits, but a network of bootleg tailors continued to manufacture them. This exacerbated racial tensions, as Mexican American youths wearing the zoot suits were seen as un-American because they were deliberately ignoring the rationing regulations.

The Zoot Suit Riots are commonly associated with the Sleepy Lagoon murder, which occurred in August 1942. The Sleepy Lagoon, as it was nicknamed, was one of the larger reservoirs outside the city of Los Angeles. On the night of August 1, 1942, zoot-suiters were involved in a fight at a party near the Sleepy Lagoon. The next morning one of the partygoers, José Díaz, was dead. There was public outcry against the zoot-suiters, fueled by local tabloids. Citing concerns about juvenile delinquency, California Gov. Culbert Olson used Díaz’s death as the impetus for a roundup by the Los Angeles Police Department of more than 600 young men and women, most of whom were Mexican American. Several of the zoot-suiters who were arrested were tried and, in January 1943, convicted of murder. However, many people denounced the circus atmosphere of the trial and attacked the verdict as a miscarriage of justice. The convictions of the Mexican American youths were later reversed on appeal in October 1944.

During the period from 1942 through 1943, the news media continued to portray the zoot-suiters as dangerous gang members who were capable of murder. On the basis of the news reports, more and more people began to believe that the Mexican American youths, particularly the zoot-suiters, were predisposed to committing crime. It was in this racially charged atmosphere that the conflict between predominantly white servicemen stationed in southern California and Mexican American youths in the area began. Incidents initially took the form of minor altercations but later escalated. Within months of the Sleepy Lagoon convictions, Los Angeles erupted in what are commonly referred to as the Zoot Suit Riots.

The riots

The riots began on June 3, 1943, after a group of sailors stated that they had been attacked by a group of Mexican American zoot-suiters. As a result, on June 4 a number of uniformed sailors chartered cabs and proceeded to the Mexican American community, seeking out the zoot-suiters. What occurred that evening and in the following days was a series of conflicts primarily between servicemen and zoot-suiters. Many zoot-suiters were beaten by servicemen and stripped of their zoot suits on the spot. The servicemen sometimes urinated on the zoot suits or burned them in the streets. One local paper printed an article describing how to “de-zoot” a zoot-suiter, including directions that the zoot suits should be burned. The servicemen were also portrayed in local news publications as heroes fighting against what was referred to as a Mexican crime wave. The worst of the rioting occurred on the night of June 7, when thousands of servicemen and citizens prowled the streets of downtown Los Angeles, attacking zoot-suiters as well as members of minority groups who were not wearing zoot suits.

In response to these confrontations, police arrested hundreds of Mexican American youths, many of whom had already been attacked by servicemen. There were also reports of Mexican American youths requesting to be arrested and locked up in order to protect themselves from the servicemen in the streets. In contrast, very few sailors and soldiers were arrested during the riots.

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Shortly after midnight on June 8, military officials declared Los Angeles off-limits to all military personnel. Deciding that the local police were completely unable or unwilling to handle the situation, officials ordered military police to patrol parts of the city and arrest disorderly military personnel; this, coupled with the ban, served to greatly deter the servicemen’s riotous actions. The next day the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution that banned the wearing of zoot suits on Los Angeles streets. The number of attacks dwindled, and the rioting had largely ended by June 10. In the following weeks, however, similar disturbances occurred in other states.

Aftermath

Remarkably, no one was killed during the riots, although many people were injured. The fact that considerably more Mexican Americans than servicemen were arrested—upward of 600 of the former, according to some estimates—fueled criticism of the Los Angeles Police Department’s response to the riots from some quarters.

As the riots died down, California Gov. Earl Warren ordered the creation of a citizens’ committee to investigate and determine the cause of the Zoot Suit Riots. The committee’s report indicated that there were several factors involved but that racism was the central cause of the riots and that it was exacerbated by the response of the Los Angeles Police Department as well as by biased and inflammatory media coverage. Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, concerned about the riots’ negative impact on the city’s image, issued his own conclusion, stating that racial prejudice was not a factor and that the riots were caused by juvenile delinquents.

George Coroian The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica