The ZazousEssay Fashion and Culture Theory

Sjoerd van BeelenFashion & Visual Culture 2012-2013

1st of January, 2013

‘Zaz, zuh, zaz, zuh, zaz’ is in itself a meaningless sentence, pulled out a song by jazz-artist/entertainer Cab Calloway2. Yet a group of Parisian young adults shaped this sound to their nickname: the Zazous. That last word might evoke images of dancing guys in oversized suits, which comes close to the passed reality, but there is an underlying concept behind their appearance. A concept that is intertwined with a very specific era: Nazi-Europe in the years 1940-1945, a period of repression, euphemistically called limited freedom, a period that can be fashionably deconstructed according the rules of structuralism.

A little history is required. The Zazous were the French outcome of how, mainly American, swing music affected the European youth. An equivalent of the Hamburg Swing-Boys and the Schlurfs from Vienna1, they were middle or high class and urban adolescents. Their existence in nazified Paris raises Saussurian questions about langue and parole3: what signs do they produce by their fashion and what do these signs connotate, not only to themselves, but moreover to others.

To answer these questions, one has to look first at the appearance of the Zazou, using the semiological model of Barthes3, who added the layer of secondary connotation to the existing model of Ferdinand de Saussure. A short list of their look, excluding behavior and language: knee-length jackets, narrow drainpipe-trousers, black umbrellas, thick-soled shoes, long hair, sunglasses and cigarettes2. These are all literal observations, words (signifiers) that have no relation to the signifieds, the actual clothes and accessories.These signifiers and signifieds together create the following sign: a man (women had a different position in the Zazou culture1), expressing his preference of swing-fashion. This sign is the conclusion of the primary signification, becoming the signifier ‘a man expressing his preference of swing-fashion’ on the secondary signification. Now it becomes interesting, as the produced signified is American hedonism1, the love for, a specific, American culture.According to Barthes, there are three modes of interpreting signs5. Each of these readings relate to the role one has in the myth. The Zazous themselves are the producers of myth, therefore they are a symbol of American hedonism. Secondly, there’s the critical audience, in this case the Nazis, the ruling class: through their glasses, the Zazous while acknowledging their intelligence are the alibi of American hedonism. The third role is that of the receptive audience, the majority of the people. The truth is that they are mere consumers of myth, making them easily influencable for propagandistic tools of Nazis, positioning the Zazous as the very presence of American hedonism (in a negative manner).

Returning to langue and parole: the Zazous loved Hollywood movies as ‘Broadway Melody’, British fashion à la Neville Chamberlain and the Swing music of Johnny Hess, their girlfriends smoked Lucky Strike and they embedded English vocabulary1. Actually, they can be considered as a parole of Anglo-Saxon-culture, acting in a country where the official ‘langue’ was German fascism. In essence the Zazous were an enclave of Anglo-Saxon ‘langue’ inside an opposing and aggressive ideology.This is, quite literally, exemplified by their Hamburgian counterparts, the Swingjugend4. They played along the paradigmatic axis of language, changing the salute ‘Heil Hitler!’ into their own ‘Swing Heil’. By substituting one word (‘Hitler’) for another (‘Swing’), the Swingjugend totally altered the meaning the sentence, while still remaining in the same spectrum of greetings.

Besides being positioned as outsiders within their own country, the Zazous were such an outspoken ‘parole’ within European jazz culture, that the ruling class, the elitist jazz-aficionado, disdained them for having more interest in dancing than in the music itself1. The elitists also feared that the behavior of the Zazous could make an end to the few grants the Nazis had given them.

‘Fashion confirms myth, yet it also comments on it’, according to Kim Bruggeman and the second part of the sentence is very well embodied by the provocative nature of the Zazous. Two examples demonstrate that. The abundance of fabric used in the zoot-suit was an ironic comment on the rationing of material in a time of scarcity. Another Government Decree2, issued in 1942, authorized the collection of hair from barber-shops to be made into slippers. The Zazous replied by letting the hair grow to extreme lengths.

Yet their most famous comment is far more politically charged. The obliged wearing of the Yellow Badge to distinguish Jews from others, inspired the Zazous to stitch similar stars on their jackets with either the inscription ‘Swing’1 or, more directed towards themselves, ‘Zazou’2. This can be considered as a mere act of symbolic resistance, furthermore the Zazous hereby mark their own status inside Parisian society, which is, quite similar to Jews, that of an outsider.Using once more the theory of Barthes, the signifier, a six-pointed yellow star with the inscription ‘Jew’, produced the following signified: a badge of identification of Jewish people. On a secondary level, however, it produces a sign of exclusion and discrimination. Seemingly, the Zazous had knowledge about semiotics.

Terms as ‘outsider’ and ‘society’ make an immediate bridge to the explanations of myth by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Will Wright3, both claiming that a homogeneous structure exist beneath a heterogeneity of myths. As Wright suggests Western movies evolved through three stages and it can be no coincidence that the transition theme emerged around the same time as the Zazous. The transition theme features the hero as an established member inside a society, that is steadily becoming more corrupt and malicious.In this situation, one can substitute the hero for the Zazou, but the actual relation between the transition theme and the Zazous is clarified by the origin of Western movies, namely America. The second World War demonstrated the sickened state of European and Asian nations, governed by dictatorial, fascist or communist regimes. This American perception on global politics must have influenced film directors at that time. This makes the transition themed-Westerns a product highly influenced by the Zeitgeist.

Back to the Zazous, as this community has one interesting insight left. The limited freedom and the turbulence at the time of occupation provided the raw material for a prototype youth movement: rebellious and provocative. Yet it has to be stated that the Zazous can be in no way considered part of the resistance movement. They were too youthful for a firm political opinion and their actions and habits of challenging the authority was a mere by-product of testosterone levels. Besides, their singularity is not derived from their subcultural background, but from the specific circumstances at that time: the Zazous were not solely an outsider within the Parisian community, but additionally an outsider within the jazz community. Their social position is the outcome of conscious interaction, which implies that the Zazous were not so much positioned as outsiders. On the contrary, they actively pursued this position and succeeded, which is quite remarkable as their community counted only several hundred people.

End notE1 Tantner, A. (1994). Jazz Youth Subcultures in Nazi Europa. In B. Abels, C. Van Rhijn, History of Daily Life: Papers of the Fifth Isha Conference (4-8 April, 1994). Retrieved from http://tantner.net/publikationen/Tantner_JazzYouthSubcultures_ISHAJournal1994-2.pdf

2 Organise! Issue #59 (author unknown, publishing date unknown). The Zazous 1940-1945: French Youth Against the Nazis. Retrieved from: http://libcom.org/history/1940-1945-the-zazous

3 Storey J. (2001), Structuralism and post-structuralism. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (vol. 3, p. 58-71). London: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

4 Holocaust Memorial Day website (author unknown, publishing date unknown). Case Study: Swing Kids. Retrieved from: http://hmd.org.uk/resources/education/case-study-swing-kids

5 Morine N. (2009), Barthes: The Mythic Form, How to Read a Myth? Retrieved from: http://suite101.com/article/barthes-the-mythic-form-how-to-read-a-myth-a153942