zoot suit

Decked out in a resplendent orange-and-blue-striped zoot suit symbolizing the colors of his beloved New York Knicks, Spike Lee hit the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet in May in full boogie mode.

Chavarria tells the story of American fashion through a Chicano lens, creating now-distinctive oversize, sculptural silhouettes that pull from various eras of Mexican American style, from sharply angular zoot suits to blue-collar workwear.

“The zoot suit was a very conspicuous look,” says Catherine S. Ramirez, author of “The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory.”

“And I knew that the reason why was because society wanted to attack a group of young men for how they dressed. Yesterday, it was zoot suits; today it’s long white T-shirts and hoodies.”

I have walked through costume houses in my career and said “Oh my God, that’s a zoot suit from ‘Malcolm X!’”