Zoot Suits

ContempoSuits.com is a great online website store where to buy men's vintage style zoot suit because we stock our zoot suits on sale because fast shipping is our priority. Don't go wearing a boring old suit to your Prom. Vintage style 1940s era Zoot Suits for Prom have been the thing to wear lately for Juniors and Seniors all over the country.

Where can you wear a zoot suit?

Many of our customers buy our men's fashion suits including our inexpensive Zoot Suits online for Costume Parties and Halloween as well. Forget about dressing like a Pirate or Vampire when you learn where to buy inexpensive Zoot Suits that make fantastic costumes for Halloween. Don't waste your money on a so-called "zoot suit" costume when you can learn where to buy the real thing here on sale for a great price. We are an online suit store that carries all the accessories you need. We also carry plenty of matching color shoes for men's fashion suits including all of our zoot suits and hats to match. You can buy the same style of gangster-style long jacket style suits that you will see in both gangster movies and television shows as well as all the fancy shirts and dress shoes online to go with them.

How did zoot suits start?

Here is a little online Zoot Suit History to know about. People have an inherent nature to be free and not be told what to do and even how to dress. Some people prefer to dress like everyone else and some utterly refuse to dress in a fashion that is deemed acceptable by the society at large or even fashionable for that matter. During the 1930s a strange new style of cheap men's suits appeared worn by Pachuco men who are South Western Mexican American men, a cheap style suit that was never seen before in the inner cities and barrios of the United States. A dress suit that just wasn't meant to let the wearer blend in with the rest of the crowd. A dress suit simply designed to be outrageous. Zoot Suits for men back then were a prime example of counter-culture in a way that was not much different than Hippies growing their hair long during the 1960s in defiance of society's norms which is just what counter-culture Pachuco men favored. The Zoot suit is a men's suit that have outrageously long dress suit jackets with overly padded shoulders, extra baggy pants, and peg leg style cuffs on the bottom of the pants. There is simply nothing mainstream about these long jacket get-ups in any way shape or form. I'm pretty sure that the first time you ever saw one of these wild-looking suits, you were either watching a movie or a television show unless you're old enough to remember when men wore them for real. Visual impact is certainly what should come to mind when you see someone wearing one. The man in this type of suit wants to showcase his bravado and be noticed in a way that lets people know that he is not a man to take lightly and won't be pushed around. It's pure machismo.

Were they considered counter culture?

The original zoot suit had to look as counter-culture and anti-conservative as possible. Exaggeration is the word that sums up the zuit suit the best in my opinion. The way it fits simply has to be the very opposite of what your standard business suit should look like. Where a regular suit is supposed to be tailored looking or standard fitting, these bad boys have to be baggy as baggy can be. On a regular suit, the shoulders are supposed to be exactly the width of the man wearing it. On a Zoot suit, those shoulders of the jacket look like they are going to the next county over. Where the lapels on a regular suit are supposed to be medium width and not draw attention to the suit, You guessed it. you get the complete opposite with this type of suit. The lapels may be wide and brash looking draw complete attention to the suit. Of course one of the main differences that sets these suits apart from a regular suits is the length of the jacket. A standard suit length generally breaks right at the hip of the man for a proper fit where the zoot suit jacket comes down the thigh as close to the knees as possible for an over-the-top look. Everything that a zuit suit is just smacks of a counter-culture that was bent on defying what a man is supposed to wear in public. The best type of suits was always tailored garments that were created to fit the wearer in a manner that looked like they were personally made for that man. A dress suit jacket that fit properly and slacks that fit as well. When you put on a suit, you were simply putting your best foot forward and wanted to look your very best in public with an air of respectability. The zoot suit on the other hand does the complete opposite. There was nothing about this type of suit that has a tailored look to it. It takes everything that you know about a suit and the way it's supposed to fit and makes you look and throws that right out of the window.

Why do zoot suits have long jackets?

You're not supposed to look like a banker, businessman or lawyer when you wear these over-the-top looking get-ups. These are baggy-style long jacket suits and look like you are trying to offend someone of the geriatric persuasion. It's really no different from the Hippies who grew their hair long and wore outrageous clothing that looked anything but mainstream and conservative. You can almost hear an old man or old lady muttering to his or herself, "Who does that person think he is wearing a suit that looks like that?" That is exactly what these type of suits were invented for. To outrage people. To get a reaction the way someone with their hair painted pink would. It didn't take long before zoot suits were seen all over the country in every metropolitan area worn on countless young men of African American or Mexican American persuasion known as Pachucos as their own counter-culture message. It's the same reason that even today, teenagers and young men always dress in a manner that is completely different from the way a grown man would dress. Depending on the era, baggy jeans of several years ago hanging off of their back sides that are several sizes too big, and now skinny jeans that are so tight and worn also hanging off their butts that they have to walk in a certain manner just to move around. Teenagers always like to do their own thing in a way that gives them some sort of identity that tells the world that they are adults even though their behavior tells you otherwise. You look at any teenager out there whether you are in the big city or in the suburban areas and you will find an overwhelming consensus that they think that just because they went through puberty. They think they are adults even though the way they conduct themselves is anything but adult-like. You would see young men zuit suiters strutting down the street with their wide padded shoulders and high waist slacks and huge brim fedora hats knowing that was it. Coming straight out from stores that sell zuit suits. That is the type of attitude that wearing a Pachuco suit could give you back then. Not much different from today's youth wearing overly baggy jeans and shirts with their baseball hats on backward.

Why were Zoot Suits Banned During World War Two?

Once World War 2 was well underway, zoot suits were banned for several reasons. One of them was that everything was being rationed during those days including the material being made into suits. So, making a baggy long jacket dress suit for men was wasting material when either that material could be used to be made into more regular designed dress suits, or factory capacity to make material for war materials. A second reason is that the US government didn't want anyone who wears dress clothes or men's fashion clothes that convey an attitude that they weren't part of the war effort. Uncle Sam wanted everyone to pitch into the war effort. These days, most people who wear a zoot suit, wear them for entirely different reasons. There are many men who will wear these bold ensembles for a fun-filled evening wear outfit that will no doubt have the beer and wine flowing freely. There are also many men who wear these outrageous long jacket suits for swing dancing for a completely nostalgic feeling bringing back the 1940s with swing dance music going wild. Bringing back nostalgic times has been the major reason that anyone these days will put on one of these suits and believe it or not, you will find that wearing one will still get the same exact reactions that they did back in the 1930s people.

Always controversial and Fun To Wear.

It's a fun way to get noticed and start a conversation with complete strangers just like men were able to do way back in the 1930s. When you wear one to a costume party or swing dance event, you will be surprised how many people will be curious about your zoot suit and want to know all about it and where you got it. Is this the first time you wore one? What is it made of? Etc, etc. One of our biggest reasons for keeping zoot suits alive is the fact that without fail every Halloween, men all over America wear these flamboyant suits as their costume of choice. It just goes to show that when it comes to costumes, you can't go wrong wearing one of the outrageous-looking suits. You can thank Hollywood for keeping the zoot suit alive because every time they make a movie that takes place in the 1930s, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will have a man or two hanging out on a street corner completely done up wearing one of these long jacket wide-shouldered suits with the huge brim hat and feather. Every time they put a couple of zuit suits into a movie and it seems to reinvigorate interest in these long jacket style suits and start selling again for a while. Every few years there is an iconic movie that comes out whether it's World War Two-era movies or during the great depression during the 1930s maybe with gangsters in it like Bonnie and Clyde or a movie about John Dillinger and you more than likely see a couple of guys wearing a long-jacket suit just standing around as added eye candy for the movie to instill realism for the shot. Just like when they have all the cars being 1930s period automobiles driving around or parked and changing storefront signs to vintage-looking signs to make the set look as 1930s as possible. The zoot suit is always included in a style of the day item that instantly transforms that sidewalk from modern times to the 1930s in a way that nothing else can. What ever you want to say about these wild-looking suits, you can never say that they are mundane and boring. It's like a walking one-man three-ring circus.