Entry · catalog no. 6207
drape shape
/ /dreɪp ʃeɪp/ /DRAYP-shayp
noun · Harlem, New York · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
The long, draped line of the zoot suit — wide at the shoulder, pinched at the waist, flaring to the knee.
“Killer-diller coat with a drape shape and reet pleats.”
Origin & Attribution
Zoot-suit talk out of 1930s and 40s Harlem, made famous by Malcolm X, who in his Autobiography (1965) remembered his first suit as a killer-diller coat with a drape shape, reet pleats, and shoulders padded like a lunatic''s cell. The drape came off the Harlem dance-hall suits of the mid-1930s; wearing it loud was a young Black and Latino refusal to be made small.
1930s
Drape suits worn in Harlem dance halls
1940s
Zoot suit and its drape shape at their height
1965
Recorded in The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York · 1940s
Spoken by
Harlem, New York
$DRAPESThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant86 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
30/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1940
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceThe Autobiography of Malcolm X (with Alex Haley) — book · 1965
book
See also