Zoot Suits are oversized, full-on suits that have slightly exaggerated features. They reigned in the decades of the 20s, 30s, and 40s, known as formal but fashionable men’s clothing.
Their ridiculous, campy origins soon became a style and part of countercultures. Although it went out of fashion after the 1940s era, it always makes fashionable comebacks.
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I am your style guide, Rallye Ibanez, a fashion assistant and designer for The Wedding Scoop. Keep reading for our top 20 zoot suit wedding attire ideas.
Top 20 Zoot Suits for Weddings
1. Liquid Jet Black Italian Suit
This premium quality jet-black Suit USA Italian zoot suit has the sophistication and elegance of black with the loose and long, classic cut, three-piece suit. It has long jackets, vests, and trousers.
The fully lined single-breasted jacket features an eyeglass and writing pen pocket. It also has underarm sweat guards. The trousers feature one front pleat and a “French fly” tab closure for the best fit.
Suit USA’s Zoot Suits have high-quality stitching and fabrics. This one matches great with a white, light blue, or light grey collared shirt, a light-colored tie, and pocket square.
2. Navy Blue Denim Suit
Dark zoot suits are regal and elegant wedding wear. This Suit USA navy blue denim zoot suit is a great formal option.
The jacket is formal but has a loose, laid-back appeal. The black peaked lapel and black flap pocket finish are great combinations, accented by decorative cuff buttons. The poly rayon blend makes it tough and well-built.
This modern classic style is a great option if you want to make a low-key, elegant statement.
3. Classic Zoot Suit
If you want the old school trad zoot suit from the ghetto 30s with a formal flair in classic dark peach, this Myles Anthony traditional zoot suit is one of your best picks.
The extended-length tailored jacket, high waist, and wide-legged tapered-end trousers are classic features. This is old-school and as stylish as you can get, especially for themed weddings.
To complete the look, it includes a wide-brimmed hat, tie, and long watch chain, all 1940s-style.
4. White Modern Fashion Suit
In contrast to dark suits, Suit USA offers an all-white attire that is bold and grand. The very bright appeal of white looks handsome in this three-piece suit. It has a smart notched lapel collar with well-cut shoulders, 4 interior pockets, and double-vented underarm sweat guards.
However, a white suit is very challenging to maintain in great condition. So its Italian designers use high-quality Italian fabric that’s wrinkle and stain-resistant.
5. Wine Color Zoot Suit
Deep red, crimson, or burgundy suits, such as this Suit USA dark-colored Zoot Suit, offer classic elegance with a romantic flair. The comfort, loose fit with the super 150 wool, poly rayon microfiber, and 100% worsted merino wool, makes it super comfy and stylish.
The single-breasted jacket, standard notch lapels, and padded shoulders complete the red 1940s classic debonair look. The pants have slanted side pockets and fully lined, buttoned back pockets for extra style. Also check out its purple version.
6. Black Zoot Suit With Accessories
Men’s USA offers you a complete dapper suit with a fedora hat, shirt, and tie. Match it with elegant gangster shoes for a formal bad-ass gangster visual. It looks great and retains ultra-comfort with a loose fit and big sizes.
The premium Italian fabric makes this zoot suit elegant and neat-looking. It features a single-breasted and long-length jacket with well-tailored shoulders, and the same-sized accent buttons all over.
The trousers are unhemmed, the default style, unless requested custom. This is to allow for a perfect fit with alterations.
7. Shadow Pinstripe Suit
The old school pinstripe design on zoot suits is a gangster wear staple. Pinstripes symbolize power dressing, and many gangsters rocked the pinstripe style like this Suit USA special.
Pinstripes look great with the extended edges of the jacket and trousers. Look like an “untouchable” mob boss in its stylish glory or for a themed wedding.
This black suit has wide and shiny tone-on-tone pinstripes with a standard single-breasted and five-button design. The trousers feature fine pleats and French fly loops, including a customizable waistband.
8. Red Pinstripe Suit
The big Don 40s gangster chic and elderly statesman formal suit fashion of this Suit USA black and red pinstripe suit is amazing. Pronounced pinstripes with red against a liquid jet black combo make it classic yet timeless.
The standard 38-inch-long jacket has a notch collar, and the trousers feature two pleats with knee-length lining.
The proper combination of this suit includes a wide-brimmed hat, a light-colored shirt, and a tie. Don’t forget those 30s, 40s-style leather shoes.
9. Fashionable Gold Suit
What if you paired bold colors and color combos with traditional 40s zoot suit styles?
This Suit USA‘s gold with bright orange color combo looks great, with old-school casino-owner-in-Vegas visuals and themes. Just like the old classic bright styles of that golden era, it also comes with a looser and bigger fit.
These zoot suits make you look bigger and more big-boss-like in bright, eye-catching colors you won’t miss in a crowd.
Its two-buttoned jacket has a stylish peaked lapel and three exterior pockets. It also has gold trim for eye-popping accents. This suit is tough and durable, with rigid high-quality polyrayon.
10. Navy Blue Pinstripe Suit
Blue and black pinstripe style zoot suits exude a more calm and graceful posture, and are also suave and sexy.
This SUIT USA navy blue pinstriped zoot suit features black stripes with short, spaced horizontal lines. The combo of blue and black exudes subdues elegance rather than bold and daring looks.
The color combo makes it more stylish, with the chest pocket, two external flap pockets on the jacket, and a peak collar trimmed in black. Its slightly slimmer fit is still loose and big enough for a zoot suit’s traditional style.
11. Stylish Grey Extra Long Jacket Suit
Grey is another elegant and understated color for wedding suits. This SUIT USA 2-piece suit has a lot of stylish texture as well. Its velvet crush-like fabric works well with the trench coat look.
This grey zoot suit features a four-buttoned, single-breasted jacket. The silver notch lapel accents add an old-timey design to the tops of the jackets. Though it engulfs the bottom, the trousers still look elegant without the pleats.
12. Powder Sky Blue Pinstripe Suit
Sky blue is a classic later-era zoot suit color. It gives 40s-era big boss feels with a stylish bent and still works well as a wedding suit.
Suit USA offers this powder blue three-piece suit with premium quality wool fabric. The unique tone-on-tone shadow pinstripe print is a traditional style that looks magnificent with the jacket’s peaked lapel design. This jacket is single-breasted with a chest pocket and three interior pockets.
13. Pinstripe White Suit
That regal-begal boss look is highly achievable with this white pinstripe zoot suit from Suit USA for a wedding event. While it has a traditional tailored trim fit style, it retains the loose fit that gives the suit the volume and width, not to mention the comfort that zoot suits offer.
The white tone-on-tone shadow pinstripes are subtle but make the suit more elegant. The suit is fully lined and made from a premium quality polyrayon blend.
14. Luxurious Brown Suit
This brown zoot suit from Suit USA doesn’t use the open-top aesthetics as our previous collections. The style looks more fitted, with a closed jacket style with an elongated comfort fit that looks slightly different from the classic style.
These types of later-era suits with slight influences of the closed long-sleeve jacket have 60s and slight military jacket design influences mixed in, so it seems.
The jacket’s six-button front closure, spread collar, and wide open cuffs with buttons are more modern features than typical zoot suits. It also has shoulder pads and underarm sweat guards, and the matching trousers include a single front pleat.
15. Plain Navy Blue Suit
Speaking of hybrid style, modern zoot suits, this Suit USA collection features a closed jacket that has a European style with a crisp cut and minimalist design.
Plain navy blue is an excellent wedding color that is less flamboyant. The deep navy blue and tailored fit style still has enough width and extra sizing that derives from the original.
With later European modern styles added to the overall design, it offers a stylistic departure from its old-school origins. The single-breasted jacket uses a diagonal-style peaked lapel with three front closure buttons.
16. Olive Green Pinstripe Suit
This Suit USA green pinstripe looks great with its exaggerated long-length jackets and their elongated comfort fit. It uses a modern, tailored style that is more fitted; however, it keeps some of the comfort and loosened fit of older designs.
Featuring an exaggerated rectangular trapezoid shape, plus towering wide shoulders and long tapered trench coat style, are classic zoot suits, but with a more modest sizing. This standard 3-piece suit features a jacket and vest single-breasted with four buttons.
Despite modern tighter fitting, the unusual tapered-trench coat jacket length and composition still make it still very much in the traditional zoot suit style.
17. Brown Denim Suit
Our previous brown piece was a closed jacket rather affair with modern touches. However, we bring back classic suit styles using 1930s-styled traditional pieces.
This Suit USA brown denim suit features an elongated jacket design with tapered sleeves. The brown denim fabric gives it an almost tweed look, creating a gorgeous, textured fabric.
The jacket features the classic single-breasted and three-button closure design. Meanwhile, the trousers are flat-fronted and without pleats. The bottom is traditionally unhemmed to allow for alterations for a perfect fit.
18. Dark Purple Suit
This top 20 Zoot Suit Wedding Outfits list is incomplete without a dark purple suit.
This Emen purple zoot suit has all the classic long-jacket and loose fit of the original zoot suits, in royal purple. Night suits like this maintain loose, big-sized tops with the tapered baggy trousers.
This Armani-style suit comprises a long, single-breasted jacket with five buttons. The buttons are discreetly covered in the same material as the suit. It has double-pleated trousers with a split waistband.
19. Blue and Bold White Pinstripe Suit
This Suit USA is a more complete Mexican-inspired zoot suit ensemble, in its full, traditional glory. It has white faded pinstripe designs on a dark blue-green vintage zoot suit.
This old-school, two-piece suit features a single-breasted jacket and high-waisted, wide-legged, and pegged trousers. The super long chain wallet is one of the main accessories, as is the feathered fedora hat and two-tone leathers for dancing.
Unlike other offerings on this list, this suit is good for open jacket style wear and also for closed jacket versions. Either way, they maintain the classic, traditional version without modern influences.
20. Tuxedo Style Suit
This tuxedo suit from Suit USA combines characteristics of the later era, zoot suits beautifully. It features tapered and flared sleeves and a curvy bodice, with all-over design motifs.
The elegance of 1940s and later era styles in a zoot tuxedo with a black tie makes this a unique wedding suit. Like blue or grey, black is a formal, understated color.
The jacket of this two-piece suit comprises a small notched lapel collar and flap pockets with shiny black trim. It is impeccably tailored for defined shoulders and a semi-fitted cut, and made from top-quality Italian fabric.
What Is a Zoot Suit?
A “zoot suit” is a 1930s to 1940s era clothing style for men. It features longer, oversized jackets or coats with wide lapels and super-sized shoulder pads. They paired them with high-waisted, wide-legged, and ankle-tapered trousers.
The zoot suit also bears influences from counterculture and music. One is from the African American 1920s era, when they were the flashy attire in comedy shows. Comedians wore these flamboyant, exaggerated suits as part of their comedic act and look.
The loose, super relaxed features of these suits also made them popular in the jazz and blues scenes of the 30s and 40s. Zoots were hot among music fans and performers.
Two related issues made it difficult to sustain. The excessive and expensive use of fabric in these suits was one problem. Then, there were the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. Anyone wearing a zoot suit was deemed unpatriotic and attacked.
The racial tensions and fabric shortage killed off this snazzy fashion trend. Still, bootleg tailors continued to manufacture them, and people continued to wear them.
The Zoot Suit never really went away and will always experience minor reboots and continued worldwide following. From Morrissey Mexican youth fans and newschool jazz blues fashion guys to old schooler zooters, the legacy goes on.
When to Wear a Zoot Suit to a Wedding
The best time to wear a zoot suit to a wedding is in cooler weather. Zoot suits are typically wool, so you may feel too warm wearing one in the summer.
Most suits are breathable and well-ventilated, yet they may still become uncomfortable if it’s a hot day.
A 1940s-themed wedding is also another ideal time for a zoot suit.
Wedding Zoot Suit Shopping Tips and Tricks
When looking for places to buy your zoot suit wedding attire, you may have access to a wider variety of styles online. Consider these seven tips and tricks when finding a zoot suit fit for a wedding.
- Set a budget. It’s likely that the zoot suit will not be ready to wear and will require some alterations to fit you well, which may increase the price.
- Start looking at suits early. Allow plenty of time to send it back and receive another suit if necessary. Perhaps order more than one at a time.
- When trying on suits, ask the opinion of someone you trust. If you’re uncertain, then they’ll let you know whether or not the suit fits you well.
- Order from a reputable company. Reputable companies usually have reviews available or a physical address and phone number on their website.
- If you’re the groom, consider sticking to a neutral-colored suit with a colorful tie unless your wedding is themed.
- Most zoot suits are made from comfortable-wearing materials and include sweat guards, but check that your suit includes the same.
- Consider the other details to complete the look. For example, the wide-brimmed hat and extra long watch chain. If you want to include the necessary trimmings to complete your look, search online for the best place to find quality accessories.
