1. 'reet' = good, proper, excellent.
2. No
3. If the suit is zoot, the pleats are reet
4. You can't (as I said) have a zoot suit without reet pleats, but you can have suit that isn't zoot with reet pleats.
5. Good, proper, excellent.
So you couldn't have a poorly made zoot suit, one whose poor construction particularly manifested itself in its non-reet pleats?
I think I was wrong. The song made me think that the zootiness of a suit was a kind of excellence of it. But I think it's really just a style, and so it could be badly made with pleats that aren't reet.
The High Numbers sing Zoot Suit.
Or perhaps the hypothesized suit of comment three is to be explained by denial and removal. Still, though, this doesn't seem to amount to a characterization of the physical nature of the pleats the way that, say, "reverse pleats" does. Is it then the case that any properly tailored suit has reet pleats, though some have forward and some reverse pleats?
Yeah, there are descriptions of the general look of a zoot suit all over the place, but they are frustratingly nonspecific about the pleats.
Zoot suits are surely always pleated, and the pleats are big. Not necessarily reet. Let's not complicate life with bullshit, folks.
Let's not complicate life with bullshit, folks.
This may not be the website for you.
This has been an excellent post and comment thread so far.
I'm more concerned she doesn't seem to acquire the trim brim she specified.
Probably should've gone to a proper milliner for her hat.
That is super, super cute. She doesn't really get the lace waist, either, though.
It's not really a gown at all, in fact.
I guess I can't really be sure that it's a blouse + skirt.
The applique flower makes it look like a gown (not a blouse + skirt) to me. It could be brown. I do not see a lace waist though.
It was the flower that made me first to doubt.
If you look closely at her waist there seem to be some round items slightly sticking out from below her top - their shape and size (reminiscent of doilies) makes me think it could be some kind of lace.
I'm picturing a costume designer being given a copy of the lyrics, sighing, and muddling through.
It might not be a zoot suit either. It looks to be straight-legged. Nobody got what they wanted, but they're all so happy about it.
Those are patriotic zoot suits, not the swashbuckling riot-causing ones.
Yes, my dad comments that it is much more in compliance with wartime clothing standards.
whose standards? I don't think zoot suits were popular for very long -- mostly just during the war.
was your dad a zoot-suiter, mini?
If you look closely at her waist there seem to be some round items slightly sticking out from below her top - their shape and size (reminiscent of doilies) makes me think it could be some kind of lace.
I think it's just a scalloped edge. Possibly a slightly peplum scalloped edge.
I suggest this Tom and Jerry take on zoot suits, from 1943: