Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.93 (684 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0812223039 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 248 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-03-23 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania. and Jeannette P. Kathy Peiss is Roy F. 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
government as wasteful and unpatriotic in a time of war. 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. 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. 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. As controversy swirled at home, young men in other places—French zazous, South African tsotsi, Trinidadian saga boys, and Russian stiliagi—made the American zoot suit their own.In Zoot Suit, historian Kathy Peiss explores this extreme fashion and its mysteri
"Reet Pleats and Drape Shape" according to Rob Hardy. 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 ho. 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 . "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).
The breadth of research upon which it is based and Peiss's determination to question conventional assumptions considerably enrich our understanding of the zoot."—Journal of American Studies"Peiss is a creative and brilliant scholar and her book is a much-welcomed addition to the body of scholarship dedicated to unlocking the riddle of the zoot."—American Historical Review"Kathy Peiss brilliantly unravels the many meanings of the zoot suit while sustaining the aesthetic pleasure of its creation in