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
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