To some degree this is true of the zoot suit, but the style’s popularization also sets a precedent for something completely new. As Black and brown communities affirmed their place in society ...

It is adopted by bandleaders and jazz musicians who add bold ties in colorful prints. The zoot suit, colloquially known in its era as “drapes,” was, by most accounts, made prominent by African ...

Zoot suit pants legs were wide and tapered at the ankles. The noted photographer Gordon Parks captured this image in Daytona Beach, Florida. Gordon Parks / Library of Congress Prints and ...

Cesar Chavez and Luis Valdez with Zoot Suit at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, 1979 (photo courtesy of Kinan Valdez) Rey Cordova as Henry and Gianna DiGregorio Rivera as El Pachuco (photo by ...

It is a deeply American story, a Mexican-American story, "Zoot Suit" the play, set in Los Angeles in the 1940s, amid rampant discrimination, a real-life murder trial and the so-called Zoot Suit Riots.