Zoot suit the U.S. War Production Board said that they wasted materials that should be devoted to the World War II war effort. When "Life" published photographs of zoot suiters in 1942, the magazine joked that they were "solid arguments for lowering the Army draft age to include 18-year-olds". This extravagance, which many considered unpatriotic in wartime, was a factor in the Zoot Suit Riots. To some, wearing the oversized suit was a declaration of freedom and self-determination, even rebelliousness. Zoot suit A zoot suit (occasionally spelled zuit suit) is a men's suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, ged trousers, and a long
Trousers of Russia issued a decree in 1701 commanding every Russian man, other than clergy and peasant farmers, to wear trousers. During the French Revolution of 1789 and following, male citizens of France adopted a working-class costume including ankle-length trousers, or pantaloons (named from a Commedia dell'Arte character named "Pantalone") in place of the aristocratic knee-breeches ("culottes"). (Compare "sans-culottes".) The new garment of the revolutionaries differed from that of the "ancien regime" upper classes in three ways: Pantaloons became fashionable in early 19th-century England and the Regency era. The style was introduced by Beau Brummell (1778-1840) and by mid-century had supplanted