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Chavarria tells the story of American fashion through a Chicano lens, creating now-distinctive oversize, sculptural silhouettes that pull from various eras of Mexican American style, from sharply angular zoot suits to blue-collar workwear.

“The zoot suit was a very conspicuous look,” says Catherine S. Ramirez, author of “The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory.”

How thousands of white servicemen and civilians assaulted anyone who wore the flamboyant zoot suits — Black, white, Filipino, but especially Mexican American.

I have walked through costume houses in my career and said “Oh my God, that’s a zoot suit from ‘Malcolm X!’”

Local residents joined the board during the unanimous vote while wearing outfits that resembled the zoot suits favored by many minority youths in Los Angeles in the 1940s.