The Swing Book

by Degen Pener

  — HARPER DELLA-PIANA, key costumer for Spin City

  “Back in the early eighties I was shopping in LA and I found a pair of medium-toned denim pants, real forties baggy pants. The waistband is about eight or nine inches wide with four sets of belt loops and four matching denim belts. It comes up like a straitjacket over my chest. It’s got the button fly. It’s heavy-duty old denim. They were stiff as a board, you could stand them up. I mean, these are the most outrageous pants you’ve ever seen.”

  — SAVOIA MICHELE, suit designer extraordinaire

  “The one thing that I love the most are these fifties-style earrings that have these little mink-fur balls that are hung at the bottom of a series of pearls. I found them in Michigan and I paid like two bucks for them at Value Village. We joke that they double as fishing lures. They always get the best reaction.”

  —CARMEN GETIT, singer and guitarist for Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums

  “I found this baby blue woman’s suit that was just incredible. It was made by Turk, who did a lot of Western stuff for rock ‘n’ roll artists in the fifties and sixties. It was heavy-duty gabardine and had black detailing with arrows. The work on it was so amazing.”

  —GRACIELA RONCONI, owner of San Francisco’s

  Guys and Dolls vintage store

  * * *

  You may also want to consider wearing quality reproductions, since fragile period clothing falls apart very easily on the dance floor. “I’ve ripped an armhole from just tossing back a martini,” says Sarah Franko, codesigner of Manifesto, a small San Francisco clothing line that designs dresses for dancers with more room in the shoulders. Adds Autumn Carey-Adamme, codesigner of Revamp, which creates period looks in breathable modern fabrics for such singers as Lavay Smith and Carmen Getit, “A lot of vintage is wool, which looks great, but who really wants to dance in heavy wool?” And if you like to do it yourself, look out for old sewing books, Simplicity patterns at garage sales, and Everyday Fashions of the Forties as Pictured in Sears Catalogs, a great resource book.

  4. A cheap way to get started is with accessories. One killer-diller hat, a flipped pair of cat’s-eyes glasses, or a jazzy tie can really dress up an otherwise nineties-looking outfit. “You could have a Macy’s or Nordstrom’s double-breasted suit, but if you wear a hat, people see it as retro,” says Al Ribaya, the owner of Martini Mercantile. “Using accessories is a much easier way to go.”

  5. The music and the dance are about improvising, so why shouldn’t the clothing be too? Buy something off the beaten track. At the Monsters of Swing dance camp in Ventura, California, the rip-roarin’ styles have included guys in sailor suits, women in Marlene Dietrich-style menswear, bowling shirts worn with ties, and couples in totally retro clothes tweaked out with fluorescent dyed hair. “I love dressing up in a men’s double-breasted suit, a bustier, and a fedora,” says Darrow Cannizzaro, owner of New York’s Darrow vintage store. What’s important is to learn all the fashion rules and then have fun with them and mix it up a bit. Because it’s not about just entering a time machine. It’s about taking something old and creating something new: your own distinctive style.

  GUYS

  Starter Kit: The easiest way to avoid squaresville is to get yourself this basic outfit: Buy a white French-cuffed shirt with a pointy collar and a pair of high-waisted Hollywood-style pants. Find a screamin’ tie that fits your personality. Add a pair of regulation red suspenders and a gently worn-in fedora. Then slip your dogs into a pair of comfortable spectator shoes. You’re ready to boogie.

  The Basics

  Dress Shirts: You can’t show off your new Betty Page cuff links without a proper shirt. Look for a finely woven shirt with French cuffs and a long, pointed forties collar. Some of the best, though most pricey, reproductions are made by H. Freeman and Son in Philadelphia and in New York by Savoia Michele. (Walking into Michele’s East Village men’s shop is like stepping into an old-time haberdashery, from the bolts of fine fabric on display to the rotary phone.)

  Guys Starter Kit

  Hats: Take your time finding the perfect topper. “A hat is your personality,” says Marie Lee, who’s run her brimming store, Tophatters, in San Leandro, California, with her husband, Ted, for fifty-two years. And no matter what your personality is like, there’s bound to be a hat to match it. There are endless styles to choose from, including fedoras, gamblers, panamas, homburgs, bowlers, and newsboy caps. But what’s most important to pay attention to is the brim width, and given the shape and size of your head, how the hat fits. It shouldn’t be too tight or too loose. The most popular brim width is two and three-eighths inches, but they can be very wide (think Cab Calloway, or Jim Carrey in The Mask) or narrow, down to one and one-quarter inches (called stingy brims, these became Frank Sinatra’s signature hat in the fifties). Which brand should you get? If you can afford top-of-the-line Borsalinos (which sometimes cost more than two hundred dollars), pony up the money. “They’re the Cadillac of hats,” says Marie. Next best thing: Biltmore. Or Stetson and Dobbs. And whether you buy a new one or vintage, make sure it’s fur felt and not wool felt. “Oh, that’s the cheapest,” says Ted Lee with disdain. The most popular colors are black, gray, and brown, but brighter shades such as burgundy, red, and sapphire are a blast too. Most have a pin and a small feather (Siegel’s, a retro department store in San Francisco, will match the color of the feather to your suit). The ribbon around the crown generally matches the hat but is just a shade darker, though there are also contrasting ribbons, like yellow on a blue hat or black on a white hat, and even ones with stripes or polka dots. Here’s a short take on the basic types of chapeaux you’ll want to consider.

  FEDORA: the granddaddy of hats in terms of popularity, both in the forties and today; it’s the best one to start with. There are two main styles: one with a crease down the middle of the crown and a pinch in the front, and one with just a crease. All have snap brims that can be pushed down in the front to create the perfect rakish angle.

  PORKPIE: a favorite of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, this stylin’ hat is similar to a fedora but has a lower crown.

  HOMBURG: a somewhat more formal style, it has an upturned brim that, unlike the fedora, does not snap down.

  CAPS: sneaking up on the fedora as a fave, the cap—referred to as a Gatsby or newsboy—can’t be beat for a casual, fresh-faced look. The best-made have eight sections stitched together. The wildest is the oversized Big Apple, a favorite of Royal Crown Revue’s Eddie Nichols.

  PANAMAS: the perfect summer hat. The ones of highest quality have the most tightly woven straw.

  TANDOS: these exaggerated hats are basically fedoras that are almost as big as sombreros. “The one that Cab Calloway wore was about six inches wide in the brim. We cut it down to four,” says Smiley Pachuco of El Pachuco Zoot Suits in Los Angeles. Also called zoot hats, these outrageous chapeaux can be taken all the way out to the edge in a color like royal blue and trimmed with two-, three-, and even eight-inch feathers. Says Smiley: “If you are not wearing that hat with your zoot suit, you are only eighty percent.”

  Pants: What’s a Hollywood-style waist? Like nothing else you’ve worn before. The slacks of the era had a waist so high it came all the way to the bottom of your rib cage. The pleats went up to the top of the pants, so there’s really no waistband. And the belt loops are very small, set a bit below the top. If you want a more casual nineties style, however, check out BC Ethic’s tux slacks with stripes down the side. Or to really go retro, think about thirties campus pants, a wide trouser with thirty-six inches of fabric around each cuff. “I didn’t really like them the first time I saw them,” says Annamarie Firley of Revamp, which makes a fine reproduction, “until I saw them move.”

  Shoes: Give your dogs a good home by investing in a forgiving pair of spectators. Fred Astaire always looked impeccable in these two-toned shoes. According to fashion historian Colin McDowell in Shoes: Fashion and Fantasy, spectators, in their signature black-and-white color combination, “echoed the s
urface mood of musical racial harmony” during the swing era. Today, while vintage pairs can still be found, at way-out prices, there are two shoe companies that divide the reproduction market. Dancers seem to find Bleyers more flexible; scenesters think Stacy Adams’s styles look cooler. Black-and-white is, of course, de rigueur, but don’t be afraid to try the more subtle brown-and-white or wilder combinations like yellow, red, or blue with white. Get them in either captoe or wingtip. Other good brands include Brenton, John Fleuvog, and the top-of-the-line Murrows and Allen-Edmonds. There’s also a tougher-looking alternative: a spectator with a Doc Marten-style thick sole. And once you’ve got your spectators, get a dependable pair of black wingtips too. Then add a pair of white bucks for summer. And what about some brown alligators? Once you start, there’s no stopping.

  * * *

  Going All the Way: The Forties Lifestyle

  For some swing fans, wearing period clothing is just the beginning. A love of retro fashion can often evolve into living a whole retro lifestyle. Believing firmly in the saying “They don’t make ’em like they used to,” swing scenesters like New Morty Show singer Vise Grip, tailor Savoia Michele, Swing Time magazine photographer Mark Jordan, and Royal Crown Revue founder Eddie Nichols collect the furniture, the cars, the books, and the radios of the thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties. “I love living that way, as long as you are having a good time with it,” says Mr. Lucky, a singer and one of the original founders of the retro scene in San Francico. But he adds that some people take it so far that they have to be VC. What’s that? “Vintagely correct. They are out for a historically correct experience,” he says. Which goods turn a home into a time machine? Here’s a sampling.

  Detective novels by Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler

  Old issues of Confidential, Life, Look, and Photoplay magazines

  Depression-era glass and Fire King bakeware

  Home bars and martini mixers

  Late-thirties Buicks, 1950s Cadillacs, and 1960s Chryslers

  Old-fashioned refrigerators (Admiral, Frigidaire), stoves (Dixie), and fans (Zero)

  Blond streamlined Heywood-Wakefield furniture

  Art deco sofas, Eames chairs, and other midcentury furniture (à la Wallpaper magazine)

  Rotary dial phones, vintage turntables, and Bakelite radios

  Pinup art, especially Betty Page photos and illustrations by George Petty

  * * *

  Suits: Whatever style you choose—whether it be double-breasted or single, three-button or four, pinstripe, fleck, or a solid color (blue serge was one of Cab Calloway’s favorites)—the most important consideration is fit. Back in the swing era, it was common for men to have all their suits custom-made. “They called it a drape suit because the fabric was actually draped on the gentleman,” says Savoia Michele, whose custom period-style suits can run up to two thousand dollars. Another source, in the LA area, is Jorge Avalos of Tin Tan Tailor Made Suits in Long Beach who designs suits for such bands as Royal Crown Revue, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Eddie Reed. Of course, not everyone can afford custom work. But even off-the-rack vintage suits can run up to four hundred, five hundred, or eight hundred dollars. So it’s worth making sure someone with a keen eye checks you out when you try on the suit. You should also plan on taking it to a local tailor for some slight alterations to get it just right. For a regulation forties look, the shoulders should be big. It should drape nicely down the body and come in at the hips, creating a V-shape. Also, look out for things like exaggeratedly peaked lapels, pleated pockets, or jackets with belted backs, the kind of detailing that makes a suit really special. As Duke Ellington and Billy Eckstine once proved, you can never have enough suits. When the pair worked together at New York’s Paramount Theater, they engaged in a battle of the closets instead of a battle of the bands. “For four weeks,” Ellington once recalled, “neither of us wore the same suit twice.… People were buying tickets just to see the sartorial changes.”

  Suspenders: It’s a sorry sight to see a pair of pants left to hang by themselves. They need suave suspenders holding them up to really fly. Make sure to choose the classier ones that attach to the pants with buttons, not clip-ons. And if you can find authentic forties pairs—they’re stretchier and narrower (three-quarters to one inch wide) than most kinds today—grab ’em. “You don’t need extra-wide suspenders when you’ve got a wild tie on,” says Michael Gardner, president of Siegel’s department store. What’s a snazzy color combination? A black dress shirt with total-contrast white suspenders.

  Ties: In the 1940s, neckties were the undisputed kings of menswear. Sherman Billingsley, owner of the exclusive Stork Club, was renowned for his collection of more than three thousand. Men even belonged to tie-swapping clubs, and it’s not hard to see why. To call them art wasn’t an overstatement. Inspired by everything from deco to cubism to surrealism (Salvador Dali did his own line of ties, which today can cost more than four hundred dollars), ties were wild, oversized, crazy, beautiful, loud, you name it. Indeed, some had such inspired patterns that they were called ham-and-eggs ties “upon which sloppy eating wouldn’t be noticed,” according to Fit to be Tied, a must-have coffee table book on neckwear of the era. Among the many types worth searching out are classic art deco styles with lightning bolts and leaping gazelles; hunting and fishing motifs; tropical styles with palm trees or Hawaiian prints; and landscapes, from scenes of San Francisco to painted-desert sunsets. And if you really want to spend the money, track down such hard-to-find winners as a Countess Mara signature tie, a classic California hand-painted number (the authentic ones actually say Hand-Painted on the back); a pinup girl tie (some of the coolest have the cutie printed inside the back of the tie); and a line called Personali-ties that included ties endorsed by Bob Hope.

  Be aware that the most authentic ties from the war years are made of rayon, not silk (which was requisitioned to make parachutes). Make sure that the tie is the standard forties width, about four inches, or even four and a half inches, across at the widest. And don’t worry if your new find seems really short once you tie it. It was designed that way to be worn with those high-waisted pants. To stand out from the crowd, wiseguys and entertainers used to wear them even shorter.

  Zoot Suit: The height of sartorial indulgence, zoot suits have almost become cliché emblems of the swing revival. But in their time they were powerful social statements of defiance, predating by decades such shock-the-bourgeoisie fashions as long hair on hippies in the sixties and multiple piercings in the nineties. Worn by disadvantaged and disaffected Hispanic and African-American youths in Los Angeles and Harlem, the zoot suit was an absurdly exaggerated look. Suit coats had peaked lapels and high shoulders and dropped all the way to the knees. Pants began at the rib cage, flowed out at the knees, and tapered in dramatically at the ankles. “It was quite a real, real zinger as a suit,” Cab Calloway has said. Adding to the extravagance were long chains, wide-brimmed hats topped with feathers, pointed shoes, and oversized cuff links. The outfit even required a certain stance. “Hat angled, knees drawn together, feet wide apart, both index fingers jabbed toward the floor,” wrote Malcolm X in his autobiography, recalling how a zoot suit was worn. “The long coat and swinging chain and the Punjab pants were much more dramatic if you stood that way.”

  Such a display, however, provoked a harsh reaction from mainstream society during the war years. Zoot suits flaunted reams and reams of material at the same time that consumer goods, especially fabrics, were being rationed. Inevitably, they were deemed an unpatriotic affront to the war effort. “To wear clothes that used up that much fabric represented a way of saying we don’t care,” says Annamarie Firley of Revamp. By 1943 the Los Angeles City Council had gone so far as to effectively make them illegal. Quickly the conflict turned violent, as servicemen stationed in LA began beating up zoot wearers and destroying their suits. Police often looked the other way. At the conclusion of the average rumble, zoot suiters more often than not were the ones who ended up going
to jail. Incidents spread to New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Detroit. (For more on the history of the zoot suit, check out the essay “The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare” in the anthology Zoot Suits and Second-Hand Dresses or rent the 1981 movie Zoot Suit starring Edward James Olmos.)

  The Zoot-Suiter

  Today an authentic vintage zoot from the forties is as impossible to find as a live Elvis. Very few still exist, and most that do reside in museums. “I’ve been in this business ten years and I’ve never seen one,” says Graciela Ronconi of Guys and Dolls. But many stylin’ reproductions are available, from stores like El Pachuco, Siegel’s (which even does zoot tuxedos in all white), and Suavecito, at prices from two hundred dollars to five hundred dollars and up. Colors run the gamut: black or white, royal blue or hot red, and, of course, pinstripe. Caution: Beware of counterfeiters trying to ride the trend: “People are taking a coat and adding six to eight inches to it and calling it a zoot suit,” says Smiley Pachuco.

  All the Extras

  Bow Ties: They weren’t just for eggheads. Cab had his wild ones, and Nat King Cole and Fats Waller were just as spiffy in more traditional bow ties. And while you can buy clip-ons, wouldn’t you be more proud of yourself if you learned how to tie a real one?

  Belts: The belts of the period were usually skinny, not wide. “With those thin belt loops, you wore a belt of between half an inch and an inch,” says Savoia Michele. Some of the sharpest come in black alligator or white leather. “The shoes to wear in the summer were white bucks. And men always matched their belts to their shoes,” he adds.

  Casual Shirts: After World War II, many men stopped wearing ties after work and the leisure era was born. Among the cool offerings from the period are gabardine shirts that have a tab at the collar instead of a buttonhole, bowling shirts, short-sleeve camp shirts, Cuban-style embroidered guayaberas, and the ever-popular Hawaiian shirts. Companies making quality reproductions include the Hi-Ball Lounge, Cruisinusa, Swave and Deboner, Devlin (incredible two-tone shirts), Johnny Suede (look for their flaming martinis), Siegel’s (which does a great tiki number), Tr$$$ac Edwards, and the most authentic, Da Vinci, which reproduces shirts based on their own original patterns from the period.