The suit that sparked a riot
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It is the early 1940s and you are in a nightclub in Los Angeles, California. The lights are low, the band is loud and you're surrounded by people on the dance floor.
It's the Lindy Hop, it's the Jitterbug, it's swing music, it's jazz. And you and the dancers around you, you, my friends, are kitted out. Kind of wide, lappelled jacket. Underneath the jacket, we have very high-waisted pleated pants, but the pants are special.
This suit is special because it's audacious. It's striped, it's oversized, it's baggy, and when you dance, it is like the fabric comes to life.
That's when you get to see the sort of dynamism of the garment.
The suit you're wearing, it's called a Zoot suit. Designed by and for young people, and it was made to get attention. And sometimes that wasn't such a good thing.
So a group of soldiers actually take it upon themselves to sort of attack. zoot-suited youth in Los Angeles, beat people up, but also disrobe them, inflicting shame and humiliation.
I'm Marc Fennell, and this is how fashion can reshape a people.
As soon as Black people have certain forms of political freedom, one of the first things that they do when they feel that moment of liberation happening is they quote-unquote change clothes.
And how it can fracture a city and become a symbol of rebellion during a war.
It's not just the suit that is unpatriotic, but it's who's in the suit. It's about who democracy serves, who it's for. It is about issues around belonging. It's a question about how and if we can share space.
What began as a youthful fashion statement would eventually become seen as un-American, would lead to violence, death, and a very dark legacy. But at the time, no one saw it coming.
I grew up somewhere in the intersection of hip-hop and punk. Clothing, dress, fashion, style, subculture, all of that was so important to both of those movements that I was just really fascinated.
So this is Monica Miller, and she's a professor of Africana Studies at Columbia University in New York City.
I am a cultural historian. I've been writing a great deal about Black fashion and dress cultures.
Okay, so let's go back to where this zoot suit began. The year is 1940. You're about to meet a young man by the name of Clyde Duncan.
A young black man who was living in Georgia went to a tailor and ordered this suit. It's really excessive.
What is a zoot suit and what did it look like in 1940s nightclubs?
The tailor's like, you're crazy, right? He makes it and it's a sensation.
Clyde Duncan is considered like a sort of a pioneer of this design. And here is what you'd be looking at.
On the head, we have a felted hat, wide brim felted hat that may have a feather in the brim. So then we're also have a kind of wide lapel jacket with padded shoulders. That jacket can be either single or double-breasted. The jacket is at least as long as your fingertip. Underneath the jacket, we have very high-waisted pleated pants, but the pants are special in that the wide leg of the pants, so at the knee, they could be as wide as, and I've heard this, I think this is absurd, but it's possible, 36 inches.
36 inches is around 92 centimetres. So that's like a metre of fabric around the knees. But then as you went down to the ankle, it would taper in. Tapers to 12 inches. Which is around 30 centimetres. So that's a third of how wide the leg was. Now, it's not just the crazy pants and the jacket. The accessories were also very important if you wanted to get your zoot suit right.
Sometimes you'd have a very wide tie and a matching pocket square. You're absolutely wearing shiny shoes. You're wearing shiny shoes that are leather on the bottom so that when you're dancing, you're really able to move.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:50
2
What is a zoot suit and what did it look like in 1940s nightclubs?
3:50–19:03
3
Who invented the zoot suit and how did Clyde Duncan popularise it?
19:03–21:13
4
Which design features and accessories made the zoot suit so audacious?
21:13–26:17