El Pachuco’s zoot suits bring fashion, culture and history to the O.C. Fair
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The OC Fair will flaunt a little more fashion this summer when zoot suiters strut in style with long-draped jackets, wide-legged trousers and feathered fedoras.
El Pachuco Zoot Suits, a Fullerton tailor shop that custom-makes the attire popularized by Mexican American youth in the 1940s, is presenting a pair of fashion shows on Aug. 9 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. at the Plaza Pacifica Stage alongside a lowrider exhibit.
The event marks a return to the fair in many ways.
El Pachuco did a one-off event at the fairgrounds back in 1994. Thirty years later, the fashion show returned and now is a regular fixture at the fair.
“Being invited back decades later made it feel like we’ve come full circle,” said Vanesa Estrella, who helps run the family shop and hosts the fashion show. “This is an event where it truly does become a community celebration, where we are able to bring in people from all over.”
Vanesa Estrella runs the El Pachuco Zoot Suits store in Fullerton. Her genesis of becoming a Fullerton School Board trustee was both unlikely and a long time coming.
The zoot suit — once popular among Mexican American, Black and Filipino youth for its stylish excesses — became an object of ire for some during the days of World War II fabric rationing. Racial tensions came to a clash in June 1943 when white sailors rioted, stripped and beat pachucos in the streets of Los Angeles for six days while local newspapers cheered on.
A pair of Los Angeles city councilmembers even tried to ban the zoot suit in the riot’s aftermath, but the effort failed.
The Zoot Suit Riots inspired a play by Luis Valdez, which later became the on-screen musical “Zoot Suit” starring Edward James Olmos.
Estrella’s mother-in-law, Phyllis, watched “Zoot Suit” multiple times when she decided to start El Pachuco in 1978. The shop has tailored custom-made zoot suits for sale from its colorful Art Deco storefront along Harbor Boulevard ever since.
Fashion shows have long served as a way for the family business to take its suits, and the history behind them, on the road.
Ads placed in Lowrider Magazine soon translated to pachucos strutting down runways with historical swagger at lowrider car shows across the Southwest.
El Pachuco continues to find itself in new and familiar places since those early beginnings, especially with the advent of social media and invitations from museums.
A rooftop zoot suit fashion show helped open the “Best in Low: Lowrider Icons of the Street and Show” exhibit in 2024 at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
Another of El Pachuco’s tailored creations is featured at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. as part of the “Corazon y vida: Lowriding Culture” exhibit.
Its zoot suits are also currently on display at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes and the Autry Museum in Los Angeles.
Most recently, pachucos outfitted by the shop helped celebrate the premiere of “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez,” a documentary about the filmmaker.
“It’s so amazing to watch something like the zoot suit that once carried this stigma now being celebrated as an important part of American history and culture,” Estrella said. “Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think we would be showcased in all these places.”
This year’s food lineup features dozens of new items and the $5 Taste of Fair program offers mini tastes before 5 p.m. daily
Orange County remains close at heart for El Pachuco as the shop continues to work with local institutions from Anaheim’s Muzeo to the fair.
This year, the fairgrounds event moved to the outdoor Pacifica Plaza Stage to accommodate the “bombita” cars from the 1940s and other classic lowriders that will be parked out in front between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Any pachucos with their own zoot suits are invited to participate in the event, which combines music, dancing and storytelling.
Evolving since fair officials first asked El Pachuco to provide zoot suit mannequins to compliment a lowrider exhibit, the event now promises an immersive experience through a mini-car show, runway struts and a cruising procession out of the fair.
“If somebody comes to enjoy the fashion, looks at the cars, takes pictures, but leaves with a better appreciation for the history, culture, and people behind it, then my job is done,” Estrella said.
