The Zazous were a fashion in France after World War II. They were young people expressing their individuality by wearing big or garish clothing (similar to the zoot suit fashion in America a few years before) and dancing wildly to swing jazz and bebop. Men wore large lumber jackets, and women short skirts, striped stockings and heavy shoes, and often carried an umbrella.

During the German occupation of France, these young people expressed their resistance and nonconformity through aggressive dance competitions, sometimes against soldiers from the occupying forces. When Vichy and German racial laws demanded that the Jews wear the Yellow Star, a number of them, in defiance, wore yellow badge labeled "zazou". They were consequently arrested and deported.

They were contemporaneous with existentialism, which appealed to many of the French intellectuals, and with the beat generation of America and Britain. A typical example was Boris Vian.

See Also

• Swing
• Swing Kids