The introduction of a new system or mode of life usually has great impacts on society. This was the case that came with the introduction of style as a new world order and everyone wanted to assimilate this system into their lives. The introduction of the zoot suit also took the black American world by storm and in no time the zoot suit was a synonym for Harlem nightlife. The zoot suit ceased being clothing but became an emblem that distinguished the Black Americans. Henry Ford’s idea of capitalism also took the world by storm and it opened doors for profit-making in the corporate world. The essay that follows intends to show that indeed Fordism and style are identity investments that are common to the marketplace. The essay will give a brief summary of the three articles on style, Fordism, and zoot suits, then it will go ahead to compare and contrast the three and finally to show their relevance to the topic(Ewen,1998, p. 71).
In 1929, the style was being assimilated in all walks of life but it still retained its symbol of showing the social status of different people. The symbol of clothes as a representation of social status is increasing enormously over the years in both sexes but it is more prevalent among females. Low-income earners are so eager to dress and look like high-income earners that only a connoisseur can be able to differentiate who is the actual high-income earner from the low. If an immigrant was asked to differentiate between the high class and the low class they would probably conclude that all the women are connoisseurs. The eagerness of the low-income earners to look as good as the high-income earner has caused the distinction of social classes using a person’s dress code to disappear. All American women appear to dress in the same way according to a casual observer (Ewen, 1998, p. 75).
In the marketplace, the images of style change and become their own. Style is closely watched and there is great opposition as this is a utopian world where cost ceases to have a great impact on the purchase, there are no restrictions offered by work and all conscience is lost on desire and each moment that passes is self-governed. Fragile egos undergo great boosting all in the name of style identity (Ewen, 1998, p. 76). The images of style are imposed on a reasonable and impersonal basis. Style provides an escape mechanism from the daily routines for the people who view themselves as middle class. In the midst of personalized units, consumption forms the basis of natural proclivity (Ewen, 1998, p. 78).
The zoot suit exceeds the symbol of an exaggerated costume. It’s the representation of an extremely wide and contradicting history. It was a direct representation of ethnicity and a channel through which identity was negotiated. It was a mode of refusal and it was quickly associated with the sub-cultural Harlem nightlife world. Due to this, the mode of dressing described the rhyming slang used in Harlem (Cosgrove, 1988, p. 1).
There were riots concerning zoot suits and they were confined to Los Angeles in the early days of June 1943. More than 60 zoot suiters were arrested and charged at the jail in Los Angeles. The riot was between Mexican-American youths and servicemen who were on shore leave. The riots had subsided as the end of the second week of June approached (Cosgrove, 1988, p. 4).
On one hand, the history of the zoot suit can be visualized as a basis of interaction between ethnicity and politics, and on the other hand, it can be a representation of the pleasures associated with identity and racial disparities. However, it is the suits association with politics and ethnicity that has contributed to making it a rich point of reference for the subsequent generations. Through the times, the zoot suit has developed new definitions and mysteries. Through Larry Neal’s songs, the suits take on a new meaning in that they represent Black Americans’ cultural resistance. According to Neal, the suit stopped being a costume but instead, it became a symbol where music merged with politics and social action (Cosgrove, 1988, p. 10).
Fordism was symbolically initiated in 1914 when Henry Ford made an introduction of his five-dollar eight-hour day for the workers as a recompense for the manning of the car assembly program he had just established. The technological and organizational innovations presented by ford were an extension of the already existing trends. The process by which the Fordist system was initiated is lengthy and it stretched to a period of almost half a century. It hugely relied on several individuals, estates, corporations and institutional decisions that required difficult political decisions due to capitalism which was introduced during the great depression of the 1930s. The wartime mobilization also meant that planning on a large scale basis was imminently required in addition to thorough rationalization which had the advantage of improving efficiency during a period when war had had a major impact on the people’s livelihoods (Harvey, 1989, p. 125).
The five-dollar eight-hour day pay was a means of providing workers with adequate income so that they can be able purchase the mass products that were going to be produced by the emerging corporations. This required that the people know how to use their money and therefore Ford took it to himself to send out social workers to teach the consumers how money should be spent to ensure that the coming mass production was met by people who knew how to spend their money. Ford strongly believed in the influence of corporate power so much that he increased the salary of the workers. However, this did not work out as he had planned and the competition posed by other corporations forced him to reduce the wages of his workers and to cut down on the number of workers (Harvey, 1989, p. 137).
The Fordist regime held on for a long period and it managed to bring positive results during the post-war period. There was unionized labor and it was able to increase the benefits that came with large-scale production and subsequent mass consumption. Materialistic standards of living increased en masse. As a result of this, there was relative stability in the corporate profits. The beginning of the accumulation regime is what brought a remarkable recession that shattered the fordism framework (Harvey, 1989, p. 140).
A comparison between the three cultural marketplace goods shows that they all had a great impact on the lives of Americans up to date with zoot suits being the least influential in current times (Ewen, 1998, p. 71).
Style continues to be something that still molds people’s perception of others’ social status. It has become the current day fashion and trends and everybody is always trying to be in line with the current trend. A comparison between style and Fordism shows that the two have one thing in common and this is that they are still in use indirectly. Fordism brought about competition and this is still a tool that is used worldwide in the corporate world (Ewen, 1998, p. 72).
Fordism and style had impacts on the society but not violent ones and this is a contrast to the zoot suit which brought about violence between the blacks and the Mexican Americans. The contrasting feature is that both fordism brought a change to the material standards of living among the Americans but the zoot suits did not change the living standards of Americans (Harvey, 1989, p. 138).
In summary, the three items that are fordism, style, and zoot suits had a big impact on the world in the nineties and they molded the marketplace to what it has become today but with the exception of zoot suits. Fordism brought a change in a drastic change in the marketplace with the introduction of new views on capitalism. Therefore it had an impact on the market and so did style as it made an identity symbol therefore it clearly agrees with the topic of the article. Zoot suits had no real impact in the market place therefore it does not connect well with the topic. Zoot suits impacted racism rather than the market place therefore it does not connect with the topic in the same way that Fordism and style do.
References
Cosgrove, S. (1988) “The Zoot Suit and Style warfare.” In Zoot Suits and Second-Hand Dresses. Ed Angela McRobbie. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Ewen, S. (1998). The Dream of Wholeness. In All Consuming images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. New York: Basic Books
Harvey, D. (1989) “Fordism.” Excerpt from The Condition of Post modernity. (pp. 125-140). Cambridge: Basic Blackwell.