Kathy Peiss

Before the bellbottom, before skinny jeans -- there was the zoot suit. Born in the 1930s, the suit’s extreme silhouette, known as the “drape shape,” swept across the nation, from dance clubs in Harlem to the streets of Los Angeles -- where it lent its name to an infamous wave of violence in the summer of 1943. Historian Kathy Peiss joins us for the story behind the “killer-diller" coat that graced the backs of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, and many others.

In the Walt Disney Cartoon "Spirit of '43,' which encouraged Americans to support the war effort, a zoot suiter is portrayed as a turncoat. Watch the video below.

Before the bellbottom, before skinny jeans -- there was the zoot suit. Born in the 1930s, the suit’s extreme silhouette, known as the “drape shape,” swept across the nation, from dance clubs in Harlem to the streets of Los Angeles -- where it lent its name to an infamous wave of violence in the summer of 1943. Historian Kathy Peiss joins us for the story behind the “killer-diller" coat that graced the backs of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, and many others.