Zoot suit 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 coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing became especially popular among the Latino, African American, Italian American, and Filipino American communities during the 1940s. Some observers claim that the "Edwardian-look" suits with velvet lapels worn by Teddy Boys in Britain are a derivative of the zoot suit. Zoot suits were first associated with African Americans in urban communities such as Harlem, Chicago, and Detroit, but were made popular by jazz musicians in the
Over-frock coat almost universally black, and was worn with waistcoat and trousers, which could be of any colour. Black coat, waistcoat, and trousers - "frock suits" - were worn only for funerals (as a 'mourning suit') and the most formal of occasions. The trousers that went with it - what would be known as formal trousers - could either be checked or striped, or have no pattern at all. The frock coat, and with it the over-frock, was increasingly rarely worn as casual wear towards the end of the 19th century, as the "sack suit", the comparatively loose modern suit was adopted