Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.81 (587 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0812223039 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 248 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-06-30 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Reet Pleats and Drape Shape Cab Calloway knew something about extreme styles. In his _The Hepster's Dictionary_ he listed "ZOOT (adj.): exaggerated." Just under it, necessarily, was "ZOOT SUIT (n.): the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit." He makes it sound patriotic, but some Americans looked at the zoot suit and were as horrified as only an older generation looking at the peculiarities of a younger generation can be. If the zoot suit was truly American, so were the anxieties it caused, and the . cameron king said great book. I came across this book at the library and it sparked interest because I have always been interested in chicano culture.This book is short and sweet as well as very entertaining.The author did an outstanding job in her research and there are some great pictures to go along with the story.This book has six chapters all very detailed from the origins of the zuit suit,the LA riot,and the spread of the style.The afterword is great as well as it indulges into the mystic and any last thoughts on the subject.Th. "When, and under what circumstances, a fashion has been understood as political, and when not." ROROTOKO This book is on the Rorotoko list. Professor Peiss's interview on "Zoot Suit" ran as the Rorotoko Cover Feature on August 29, 2011 (and can be read in the Rorotoko archive).
She is the author of Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press, and Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York. and Jeannette P. . Kathy Peiss is Roy F. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania
The only totally and truly American civilian suit.—Cab Calloway, The Hepster's Dictionary, 1944Before the fashion statements of hippies, punks, or hip-hop, there was the zoot suit, a striking urban look of the World War II era that captivated the imagination. This outré style was a turning point in the way we understand the meaning of clothing as an expression of social conditions and power relations. She traces the unfolding history of this style and its importance to the youth who adopted it as their uniform, and at the same time considers the way public figures, experts, political activists, and historians have interpreted it. The fashion became notorious when it appeared to trigger violence and disorder in Los Angeles in 1943—events forever known as the "zoot suit riot." In its wake, social scientists, psychiatrists, journalists, and politicians all tried to explain the riddle of the zoot suit, transforming it into a multifaceted symbol: to some, a sign of social deviance and psychological disturbance, to others, a gesture of resistance against racial prejudice and discrimination. government as wasteful and unpatriotic in a time of war. As contro
"Thorough, well-researched, and illuminating."—PopMatters"An important and valuable book. Zoot Suit is a cultural history laced with the eye of ethnography, showing how an original African American sartorial style carried substantial symbolic power into the lives of Mexican American pachucos suaves, Jewish tailor trumpeters, and all who would wear 'the Drape' as a statement of hipness."—Nick Spitzer, producer and host of American Routes"Refreshingly skeptical of the intellectual habit of reducing all cultural expression to the political."—Wall Street Journ