The male Zazous wore extra large jackets, which hung down to their knees and which were fitted out with many pockets and often several half-belts. The amount of material used was a direct comment on government decrees on the rationing of clothing material. Their trousers were narrow, gathered at the waist, and so were their ties, which were cotton or heavy wool. The shirt collars were high and kept in place by a horizontal pin. They liked thick-soled suede shoes, with white or brightly coloured socks. Their hairstyles were greased and long. Many
Zazous liked to dress in the
style anglais with umbrellas (seen as a symbol of Britishness in France) a popular fashion accessory and their hair done up ''à la mode d'Oxford
(as Simone de Beauvoir called it), had a fondness for speaking to each other in English as it was more "cool" and loved British and American popular music. The British historian of France W.D. Hall described the Zazou'' look as follows: "the young men wore dirty drape suits with "drainpipe" trousers under their sheepskin-lined jackets and
brillianted liberally their long hair, the girls favored tight roll-collar sweaters with short flared skirts and wooden platform shoes, sported dark glasses with big lenses, put on heavy make-up and went bare-headed to show their dyed hair, set off by a lock of a different hue". Female Zazous wore their hair in curls falling down to their shoulders, or in braids. Blonde was the favourite colour, and they wore bright red lipstick, as well as sunglasses, also favoured by some male Zazous. They wore jackets with extremely wide shoulders and short, pleated skirts. Their stockings were striped or sometimes net, and they wore shoes with thick wooden soles. In his autobiography,
Christian Dior wrote of the style: Hats were far too large, skirts far too short, jackets far too long, shoes far too heavy... I have no doubt that this
zazou style originated in a desire to defy the forces of occupation and the austerity of Vichy. For lack of other materials, feathers and veils, promoted to the dignity of flags, floated through Paris like revolutionary banners. But as a fashion I found it repellent. The Zazous were fans of checkered patterns, on jacket, skirt or umbrellas. They began to appear in the vegetarian restaurants and developed a passion for grated
carrot salad. They usually drank fruit juice or beer with
grenadine syrup. The Zazous were numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands and were generally between 17 and 20. There were Zazous from all classes, races, and both sexes but with apparently similar outlooks. Working class Zazous used theft of cloth and black market activities to get their outfits, sometimes stitching their own clothes. Some of the more bohemian Zazous in the Latin Quarter varied the outfit, with sheepskin jackets and multicoloured scarves. It was their ironic and sarcastic comments on the Nazi/Vichy rulers, their dandyism and hedonism, their suspicion of the work ethic and their love of "decadent" jazz that distinguished them as one of the prototype youth movements questioning society. While they did not suffer like their contemporaries in Germany, the Hamburg and Berlin based
Swingjugend (many of whom were imprisoned in concentration camps) and the working class, mostly Cologne based
Edelweiss Pirates (some of whom were hanged by the Nazis), the Zazou subculture represented an important dissident minority in a society of widespread complicity and acquiescence. =="Syncopated"==