Women wore turtle-neck jumpers, short pleated skirts, striped stockings, heavy shoes, and carried large, folded umbrellas, whatever the weather.
In reality, jazz led something of a double life. Despite the fact that the Germans were led to see jazz as an unthreatening form, many French people saw it in quite the opposite way. A 1946 article in the American jazz magazine Down Beat claimed that jazz, 'became the symbol of, or the last tie with, the outside free world'. Because of its unrestrained style and foreign influences, jazz was the antithesis of fascist values. On one level, musicians saw themselves as restoring pride in France and asserting themselves against German rule. On another level, jazz came to be seen as a covert reference to America, especially after the US joined the war. This became epitomised by the word 'zazou'. The origins of this word are vague, but it appeared in a 1938 song by Johnny Hess titled 'Je Suis Swing' (I Am Swing), and it came to represent youths who refused to conform with Nazi occupation. Male zazous frequently dressed in thigh-length jackets, dark narrow trousers, heavy, unpolished shoes, a thick tie and lumber jacket. Women wore turtle-neck jumpers, short pleated skirts, striped stockings, heavy shoes, and carried large, folded umbrellas, whatever the weather. The term 'swing', which was generally avoided because of its American connotations, became, for the zazou, slang for anything cool. From 1942, when the Nazis made it obligatory for Jews to wear a yellow star, zazou protesters sported one with the word 'swing' or 'zazou' in the middle. In Saint-Germain in 1943, one group staged a silent protest wearing cut-up cardboard stars before being arrested by the Gestapo. There was even a violent newspaper campaign amongst collaborationists in 1942 entitled the 'chasse au zazou' (hunt for zazous). In this way, both swing and zazou became symbols of resistance.