The Swing Book (26 page)

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.

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.

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.

F
EDORA:
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.

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

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

C
APS:
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.

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

T
ANDOS:
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 surface 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.