The Princesses of China

Summary

Articles of Interest: "The Princesses of China"

Host: Avery Trufelman
Date: July 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the phenomenon of young women in China dressing up as dynastic royalty—so-called "princesses"—and how this practice reflects deeper trends in Chinese fashion, identity, and history. From rented Hanfu at tourist sites to the evolution of the qipao and the political undercurrents surrounding what is considered "authentic" Chinese dress, host Avery Trufelman and a host of guests, including Derek Guy, explore how modern Chinese people are using clothing to reconnect with the past, reimagine the present, and shape the nation’s fashion future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hanfu Princesses: Cosplay or Something Deeper?

• Opening Scene in Beijing:
  Derek Guy describes being overwhelmed by "crowds of people, mostly women, dressing like 15th-century Chinese royalty" at major tourist sites ([00:10]).
• Social Media & TV Influence:
  Many dress up to take photos for Red Note (China’s Instagram/TikTok equivalent), often inspired by the hit TV drama Empresses in the Palace ([01:43]), about "women scheming for power and the emperor’s attention by killing each other's babies" ([02:10]).
• Why Do They Dress Up?
  Yebu Ji notes, “It means something to them to have a dream for a day. I support them. ... One thing about China ... if it's history, you feel you are more free in history.” ([02:49])

2. The Dynasties, Hanfu, and the Rise of Historical Fashion

• Hanfu Rental is New:
  This dress-up trend only became commercially established in the last year ([07:34]).
• Dynastic Preferences:
  The Ming Dynasty is the most popular source of inspiration ([07:39]), partly because it's seen as both beautiful and "controlled by the Hans," the majority Chinese ethnicity ([08:15]).
• Hanfu Characteristics:
  Big, wide, sumptuous sleeves—“Hanfu is royal and sumptuous and basically impractical.” ([08:41])
• Contrast with Qing Dynastic Dress:
  Qing (Manchurian) dress is more practical and widespread, but less favored now due to its "outsider" origins ([09:02]-[10:21]).

3. The Evolution and Meaning of the Qipao (Cheongsam)

• Qipao as Modern/International Symbol:
  Shanghai, 1920s-30s: Qipao evolves from loose robes to “tight, sexy Chinese femininity,” a symbol of cosmopolitan independence ([13:00]-[15:47]).
• Diaspora and Terminology:
  After 1949, qipao tailors moved to Hong Kong, where “cheongsam culture” flourished ([16:03]), with “cheongsam” meaning “long dress” in Cantonese ([16:29]).
• Political/Identity Tensions:
  Qipao faces difficulties as a national dress due to its Manchu (Qing) roots ([26:22]-[26:39]).

4. Uniformity under Mao: The Zhongshan Suit

• Post-1949 Conformity:
  From 1950s-80s, nearly everyone wore the "Mao suit" (Zhongshan suit) ([17:07]-[20:30]), itself rooted in a blend of international and Chinese elements, symbolizing virtues of the republic ([18:25]).
• Social Enforcement:
  Conformity was socially enforced ("...if you didn't button it, someone would say something to you" – Antonia Finnay, [20:43]), driven by a “regime of fear” ([21:18]).

5. Modern Tensions and the Resurgence of History-Inspired Fashion

• Hanfu Return:
  There’s deep skepticism about Qing-era (Manchu) designs; Hanfu’s rise expresses Han identity and is more culturally "comfortable" ([27:05]-[28:25]).
• Fashion as Rebellion and Expression:
  Attempts to regulate modern fashion—e.g., Xi Jinping’s failed 2023 law against “clothing or symbols that were detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation”—met with notable popular resistance ([24:27]-[24:50]).

6. Hanfu Fridays and “Guo Chao”—Modern Chinese Style

• Workplace Hanfu:
  Ivy Ye’s "Hanfu Club" at Alipay adapted older styles for office wear (“modern Hanfu”), even influencing mainstream brands like Adidas ([30:51]-[32:27]).
• Controversies Over Authenticity:
  Adidas’s Manchurian-inspired jacket faces backlash due to Qing associations and the period known in China as the “century of humiliation” ([33:11]-[33:52]).
• What is “Guo Chao”?
  Debate on whether foreign brands using Chinese elements count as “Guo Chao” (national style): "Can Dior use horse face ... and call [itself] Guo Chao?" ([39:40]-[40:26])
• Young Chinese Designers:
  New homegrown labels (e.g., Songmont handbags) subtly reference Chinese history and are seen as true “Guo Chao” ([41:29]-[41:32]).

7. Ethnicity, Identity, and the Meaning of Revival

• Ethnic Dimensions:
  Hanfu and nationalism: Some view Hanfu’s popularity as Han chauvinism, but it’s also about comfort and historical interest ([34:42]-[35:18]).
• Syncretism:
  Ivy Ye wears Tibetan, Uyghur, and other styles, demonstrating a broader curiosity about China’s many cultures: "She’s just exploring different cultures and fashion history." ([38:52]-[39:05])

8. State, Patriotism, and Media: New Cultural Confidence

• State Involvement:
  Government encourages the historic trend as a way to unite and promote a long, continuous Chinese civilization ([42:12]).
• Optimism and Critique:
  Unlike Western media, Chinese media rarely self-criticizes, which reinforces a sense of pride; however, cultural confidence risks becoming nationalism gone unexamined ([42:41], [44:41]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Dressing up as a princess] means something to them to have a dream for a day. ... If they want to have a dream, go have a dream.”
  —Yebu Ji ([02:49])

• “China is the land of the future ... and yet, when it comes to fashion, China is decidedly nostalgic.”
  —Derek Guy ([03:19])

• "Jacket and trousers is the clothing of the worker, the peasant and the soldier. You don't do any of those things wearing skirts or robes."
  —Antonia Finnay ([20:18])

• “If you wear a Mao suit in China, people will stare at you.”
  —Julie Bluset ([22:17])

• “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese people ... I think that's definitely more in the direction of the Hanfu. It's looking like the princesses.”
  —Julie Bluset ([25:16])

• “Qipao’s for grandmas.”
  —Casey Hall ([25:52])

• “Hanfu is not entirely about the glory in the past of the Han ethnicity. In some ways it’s popular for practical reasons, like it’s looser and more comfortable.”
  —Professor Ko Ren ([35:01])

• "Once you feel too strongly about one place, you start to think about other places as just opposites or foils and not as complicated places. And then you lose sight of how your own place is actually complicated."
  —Professor Ko Ren ([44:54])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:10: Derek Guy’s first encounter with the "princesses" at tourist sites.
• 01:43: Forbidden City as backdrop for selfies, connection to TV drama Empresses in the Palace.
• 07:34: Hanfu rental shops, a recent phenomenon.
• 13:00–15:47: Qipao’s evolution in Shanghai and its symbolism.
• 17:07–20:30: Life under Mao and the pervasiveness of the Zhongshan suit.
• 24:27–24:50: Government’s failed attempt to regulate fashion.
• 30:51–32:27: “Hanfu Fridays” at Alipay and contemporary Hanfu in big brands.
• 33:11: Adidas's controversial Manchurian jacket.
• 39:40–41:32: What counts as “Guo Chao” and the emergence of Chinese luxury brands.
• 44:41: Reflections on patriotism, critique, and complexity in China and the US.

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Conclusion

The episode weaves together fashion, history, ethnicity, and politics in a tour of how China’s young generation is redefining national style through nostalgia, creativity, and cultural pride. With playful banter and deep insight from guests, it connects the explosion of Hanfu cosplay to modern identity, political sensitivities surrounding the Qing dynasty, and debates about what constitutes "real" Chinese fashion. Throughout, the message is clear: clothing is not just about aesthetics—it’s about belonging, memory, and meaning in a rapidly changing nation.

Transcript

[Derek Guy]

I have to warn you up front, my Chinese pronunciation is terrible. Nichou Yingguan, Right? How do you say speak? I'm trying over here. Is it Nicho?

[Casey Hall]

Yeah.

[William Zhang]

Can you ask?

[Derek Guy]

I promised myself that I would not make a story about China. When I was invited at the last minute to attend a conference in Beijing, I was like, I'm just gonna let it wash over me. I am not gonna work. I'm not gonna make a story about it. But then I couldn't avoid it. All right, maybe I will ask some of them where they got their clothes from. Because at all the major tourist sites, there were crowds of people, mostly women, dressing like 15th century Chinese royalty. I mean, huge, massive crowds of them. Traffic jams. Of them wearing long fur trimmed robes with long bell sleeves and elaborate vertical updos festooned with golden hair sticks, fans, makeup, teetering on heels. To the clueless American, they kind of looked like iterations of Queen Amidala. They looked incredible. May I ask, where did you get your costume? They're not yours.

[Antonia Finnay]

Yes.

[Derek Guy]

You rent.

[Antonia Finnay]

Yes.

[Derek Guy]

Ah, we all rent. Oh, everybody rents.

[Yebu Ji]

Yes.

[Derek Guy]

From different places. Or this. Okay, so they were renting these elaborate getups so they could post pictures on Red Note. You look amazing. I get it. That's something people would do. That didn't seem like something I needed to make a story about. But then I just couldn't stay away. Something about it felt like more than just cosplay.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Aw.

[Yebu Ji]

Okay. So I just asked, like, why you want to be here wearing this?

[Derek Guy]

My friend podcaster and producer Yebu Ji played translator and helped me approach some of these princesses in a less embarrassing way.

[Yebu Ji]

They said because they are from the southern area. That's why they want to have a taste of it when they are visiting the Forbidden City.

[Derek Guy]

Yebu and I were in the Forbidden City, which is the name of the sprawling imperial palace in the middle of Beijing. It was the home of the last royal dynasties. And its museum, Museum today, and its bright pagodas and high walls do make great photo backgrounds. But most importantly for these princesses, it's also the setting of a wildly popular TV series. Wait, what's the name of the drama?

[Yebu Ji]

They have, like, official translation of the name, but the Chinese is Zheng Huan Zhuan.

[Derek Guy]

It's translated officially as empresses in the palace. It aired in 2012, and Yebu described the plot as women scheming for power and the emperor's attention by killing each other's babies.

[Antonia Finnay]

So, Yamu.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Okay.

[Yebu Ji]

And also I ask, like, is any of the inspiration from the Drama then said, absolutely, yes.

[Derek Guy]

Okay. People dress like their favorite TV shows, take pictures of themselves and put them on red note. Makes sense. Can I like ask you what you think?

[Yebu Ji]

What's my opinion?

[Derek Guy]

Yeah, what's your opinion?

[Yebu Ji]

Well, I did my fellowship in cynicism, so I don't really have any positive opinions.

[Derek Guy]

Yabu is such a hater.

[Yebu Ji]

I can see a lot of very young kids dressing like that here in this very historical site. It means something to them to have a dream for a day. I support them. You know, if they want to have a dream, go have a dream. I think one thing about China is because we know that modern days is very complicated. It's a lot of policy related and people are a little afraid to talk about modern scenarios. But if it's history, you feel you are more free in history.

[Derek Guy]

I did notice flipping through channels in my hotel room. It's like a period drama. This is also a period piece World War II drama that nearly all of the soap operas and movies and scripted TV were historical dramas. This looks like People's army era. This is like a comedy that's a period drama. Everyone's in robes and this is another war period drama. Oh, here's people fighting with Namchuck's period movie. This rules. China is the land of the future, where all the cars are electric and park themselves, where you pay for everything with your phone, where the high speed rail seamlessly transported me 818 miles in four and a half hours, and where I was given a professional manicure while I waited to get into a hot pot restaurant. And yet, when it comes to fashion, China is decidedly nostalgic. Not for the People's army or for World War II. This retro fashion is decidedly older. Does this have any impact on the way they dress normally? Like, do they?

[Ivy Ye]

Yeah.

[Derek Guy]

And it extends into far more than just cosplay at tourist attractions.

[Yebu Ji]

She will wear that for daily lifestyle, daily occasion.

[Derek Guy]

The princesses of China are impacting fashion and summoning a new era in Chinese style, which I think is going to impact all of us. After the break,

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Try Hard is back with a new season featuring conversations with Ingrid Nielsen, Anna Sale, Rishikesh Hirway, Alexander Chee, and so many more guests this season. We're diving into guests Try Hard moments, the big decisions, the pivots and the leaps of faith that came to define their lives. We're Talking to an OG lifestyle influencer who decided to leave her YouTube career behind, an author who chose to write the book he wanted to write instead of the one his editors wanted and a fancy pants business consultant who stepped off the career treadmill to do something radically different. Each of these episodes digs into the powerful stories we tell about ourselves, and what every guest has in common is that they've asked themselves the same question. What if I told a different story? Listen to Try Hard from Defector Media wherever you get your podcasts.

[Derek Guy]

I don't know about you, but I am a napper. I need to nap usually once a day, sometimes more than once a day. So my bed isn't just something I go to at night, it's a little companion that helps me out throughout the day. And my Sapira Hybrid mattress from Leesa has become my reset button. My Leesa mattress always has my back. Literally. It's supportive without being stiff, soft without sinking, and somehow exactly what I need for very, very good sleep. Leesa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored for how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and preferences in mind. Just take the Leesa Sleep Quiz and you'll find your perfect match in less than 2 minutes. Go to leesa.com for 25% off select mattresses plus get an extra $50 off with promo code articles exclusive to my listeners. That's L E-E-S a.com promo code articles for 25% off select mattresses plus an extra $50 off support this show and let them know we sent you after checkout Lisa.com promo code articles July 4th is over. The fireworks have faded and maybe you were like, oh, that was really nice. I enjoyed hanging out with people and just taking a little time out to enjoy the summer. Macy's is using this moment to make a commitment to bring people together at a time when connection feels harder than ever. Macy's has relaunched its social impact platform Mission Everyone, focusing on sparking togetherness in everyday life. And Macy's is also activating social impact across the country in their stores through their employees, in store events and a national network of community. Shop in store or online@macy's.com oh, here's one of the shops where they rent the rent the clothes. If you would like to dress up as a Chinese princess for a day, it'll only cost you like $20. And that includes hair and makeup. Can you just ask when was this business established?

[Yebu Ji]

Okay,

[Derek Guy]

this is a relatively new phenomenon.

[Yebu Ji]

Just a year.

[Julie Bluset]

Oh wow.

[Derek Guy]

Yebu asked the proprietor of this store some questions for me.

[Yebu Ji]

I just asked her like which dynasty the young girls are pre and she said it's a Ming that they are preferring.

[Derek Guy]

The most popular style of costume was from the Ming Dynasty, the penultimate dynasty of China. It had a pretty great 276 year run from 1368 to 1644. This was the dynasty that built the castle of the Forbidden City. It repaired the Great Wall, it made some pretty great vases, a lot of stereotypical Chinese landmarks.

[Yebu Ji]

The Ming Dynasty's customers are arguably, people think they are more pretty, they are

[Derek Guy]

prettier, but I don't think it's just because it's prettier.

[Yebu Ji]

And Ming is controlled by the Hans.

[Derek Guy]

Han is the largest ethnic group in China. Over 90% of people in China are Han. Most of these princess clothes are Han. And that's why this clothing is widely known as Hanfu, which is essentially Han clothing, the clothing of the Han people. And honestly, it rips.

[Yebu Ji]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Derek Guy]

Big, wide sleeves.

[Yebu Ji]

The sleeves are wide too.

[Julie Bluset]

Yeah.

[Yebu Ji]

Because, I mean, royals, they don't need to do.

[Derek Guy]

Hanfu is royal and sumptuous and basically impractical. The girls taking selfies around the Forbidden City needed to move very slowly and hike up their big skirt when they walked. But Hanfu was technically banned by the dynasty that came after them, the last

[Yebu Ji]

dynasty who lived in the Forbidden City. They are not Hans, they are the Manchurians.

[Derek Guy]

The Manchurians established the Qing Dynasty, which lasted until 1912. Like, it lasted a long time. This was the last dynasty in China. And you can kind of see it edging a little bit towards modernity. The Manchurian garb is a little more practical.

[Yebu Ji]

The sleeves are shorter.

[Casey Hall]

Oh, right, right, right.

[Derek Guy]

And they're more compact. They're not these, like, big bell fur lined things.

[Yebu Ji]

They were travelers. They are travelers.

[Derek Guy]

And the Manchurians, when they took over the region we now know as China, they enforced their style of dress all over the land. And to give you an idea of what it looked like, there was this book written in 1909 by the wife of a missionary, Alicia. And it's called in the Land of the Blue Gown, because that was the ubiquitous style of menswear in the Manchurian dynasty. Long gowns with loose pants under it. And in this book, she even writes about how a Chinese tailor told her that foreigners want everything way too tight and firmly declines to make any more foreign clothes. They give him too much anxiety, he says, so this is important. That tailor was highlighting this fundamental difference in the way that Chinese dressing worked, which is that it emphasized the fabric. In Europe and the United States, fabrics were tortured into position with tight stitching. But in China, men and women wore large swaths of cloth with very few cuts and very loose stitching to let the fabric take center stage. And it was about having the pattern be as continuous and uninterrupted as possible. Like the collars aren't turned down to disrupt the cloth, they're turned up to continue it. And when you think about those knotted rope Chinese style buttons, they're sometimes called frog fastenings. Note that they're sewn on top of the fabric rather than cutting buttonholes. It's all about keeping the cloth intact, not only to appreciate it, but to maybe reuse it. Or you take out the stitches to wash it. It's just a different approach to clothing. And yet those loose Manchurian robes would lead to the height of tight, sexy Chinese femininity. The dress that I assumed was the classic Chinese dress, the qipao, is origins

[Yebu Ji]

are this because they have this collar and it's open from the side.

[Derek Guy]

You know the qipao even if you don't know it by name. The qipao is that form fitting Chinese dress with the Mandarin collar and the big slit up the side.

[Casey Hall]

I think the way that most people would think of qipao probably is along the lines of the qipao scene in the Mood for Love, the Wong Kar Wai movie.

[Derek Guy]

If you've seen in the Mood for Love or seen stills from it, you have seen Maggie Chung absolutely wearing the hell out of the most delicious shimmering high collar sheath dresses in luxurious patterns that hug her figure.

[Casey Hall]

In the year 2000, that was the first time I'd ever seen or been inspired by qipao. I was in that film.

[Derek Guy]

Casey hall is a journalist and an author who's been living in Shanghai for

[Casey Hall]

18 years, covering a lot of the kind of fashion industry and consumer industry, what people are buying and not buying.

[Derek Guy]

So Casey brought me to some shops in Shanghai's tiny Qipao district.

[Casey Hall]

She said that your figure would look great in a qipao.

[Derek Guy]

Yeah, I mean, the store owner was trying to get me to buy a qipao because it's her store and she's selling qipao. But also she had no problem with a white American lady wearing one of these.

[Casey Hall]

She's saying in many ways it's more appropriate for Western women to wear them because of their shape, because they have like a curves and a curvy bum. So it looks really beautiful. It's very suitable.

[Derek Guy]

It's also because the qipao, especially in Shanghai, was considered an extremely international dress.

[Casey Hall]

The evolution of the qipao, it's always been about women Trying to be more independent and modern. They wanted to, like, also feel more international as well.

[Derek Guy]

Casey and I went to see this big exhibit at the Shanghai Museum called Glamour and Modernity Beyond Shanghai. And the exhibit arranged all the dresses chronologically so you could see how the qipao evolved from the loose Manchurian robes after the last dynasty fell.

[Casey Hall]

After the fall of the Qing in 1911, this is what young women started wearing. And it was like a copy of what the male intellectuals were wearing.

[Derek Guy]

A lot of young girls were going to university for the first time, and so they wore big robes over pan,

[Casey Hall]

shaking off the dynastic tradition of the patriarchal society they'd been living under. And it was a signal of their independence and modernity.

[Derek Guy]

And then eventually the tunic got more form fitting and the trousers went away

[Casey Hall]

and they just kept getting lighter and lighter and tighter and tighter and more and more colorful and playing with different lengths and embroidery and materials until like 20s and 30s.

[Derek Guy]

And in the 1930s, the dresses got real tight. This is when you start to see that high leg slit come in. It's just a way to be able to move in this tight, tight qipao.

[Casey Hall]

This was the version of modern that they wanted. In 1930, when they wanted to go out, they wanted to party, especially in

[Derek Guy]

the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai, which in the 1930s was known as the Paris of the East.

[Casey Hall]

Like 1930s, Shanghai would have been just the most fun time to be living in Shanghai. It was like an absolute party town. I think it was JG Ballard in his book, he was talking about growing up in Shanghai and actually during the war against the Japanese, his family was interned in a camp. And he said it was the first time he had seen his parents sober in his life.

[Derek Guy]

The world came to Shanghai in part because it was like wild. China was still getting its act together after the last dynasty fell.

[Casey Hall]

Honestly, there was a bit of a power vacuum. The government at the time was not super powerful. There were a lot of uneven treaties between China and Western powers, including the French, the British, Americans, Japanese also. So that's why there was like this influx of foreigners.

[Derek Guy]

And Shanghai was mostly a fun time for the foreigners. A lot of Chinese were not allowed to enter parks and public places.

[Casey Hall]

So it's like a whole lot of people were coming from all over the world to trade with China.

[Derek Guy]

The qipao became the dress of the cosmopolitan Chinese woman. And this was really important. Like back in the 19th century, China had a reputation for being very backwards and using foot binding. But then came the progressive, free thinking Chinese woman. Wearing her tight qipao, mingling regularly with other cultures in Shanghai, there was like

[Casey Hall]

an idea of Chinese women wanting to show off what it is to be a modern, beautiful, feminine Chinese woman.

[Derek Guy]

The qipao was tight and molded like a foreigner's dress, but was still very Chinese, with the knotted frog clasps and the emphasis on beautiful cloth and the high collar. This is a suit, but it's got. But it's like a qipao sheath with a little matching jacket over it.

[Casey Hall]

I bet this actually comes from outside of Shanghai at this point, because after 1949, a lot of the qipao tailors from Shanghai moved to Hong Kong, which is where you see in the kind of 1950s and 60s, a real explosion of one in Cantonese is called cheongsam. Cheongsam culture.

[Derek Guy]

Technically, what Maggie Chung is wearing in in the Mood for Love is not a qipao but a cheongsam, because the movie is set in 1960s Hong Kong.

[Casey Hall]

Cheongsam is like. It just means long dress, I think, in Cantonese, but it is essentially. It looks the same as a qipao. It really was boosted by the influx of qipao tailors from Shanghai.

[Derek Guy]

The qipao tailors all fled mainland China and brought their craft all over as

[Casey Hall]

it went from Shanghai to Hong Kong, but then also kind of spread around the Chinese diaspora and Singapore and Malaysia and other countries as well. The qipao from Shanghai took on a life of its own outside of Shanghai during the period when people weren't wearing

[Derek Guy]

it here and people weren't wearing qipao in Shanghai or anywhere in mainland China. Were people wearing qipaos?

[Antonia Finnay]

No, no, no, no.

[Derek Guy]

Not in 72.

[Professor Ko Ren]

No.

[Antonia Finnay]

One or two people might have done so in the privacy of their homes, but 1972 was still a pretty tough time.

[Derek Guy]

This is Antonia Finay, who's kind of a legend in Chinese fashion history. She's associated with the University of Melbourne.

[Antonia Finnay]

And I have spent some years in China, starting when I was a student in the 1970s.

[Derek Guy]

I wanted to ask what you saw people wearing when you were teaching in Shanghai in 1972.

[Antonia Finnay]

There was this extraordinary uniformity across the society. It was very, very rare for you to turn your head because someone was wearing something different.

[Derek Guy]

From the 1950s until essentially the 1980s, people in China dressed like Mao Zedong,

[Antonia Finnay]

jackets and trousers, just Guru Gu.

[Derek Guy]

And Mao wore what looks to our eyes like a chore coat with matching pants.

[Antonia Finnay]

Mao, like all people within the Communist Party, would wear a jacket with four pockets. That's what it is.

[Derek Guy]

This is sometimes called the Mao suit. But the interesting thing is Mao did not invent this suit. And it's not really known as the Mao suit in China.

[Antonia Finnay]

What we call the Mao suit actually is the Zhongshan Zhong.

[Derek Guy]

This suit, the Zhongsan suit. Sorry, my chin is so bad. The Zhongshan suit was created after the fall of the last royal dynasty in 1911. It was designed by the father of the new Chinese Republic, Sun Yat Sen. And you can see it kind of follows similar logic to the Qipao. It's very international, but also very Chinese. The suit is based on Japanese and Prussian military clothes. And it clearly has a lot of Western elements. It has a turned down collar, it has buttons with buttonholes. But it has distinctly Chinese symbolism. Like the four pockets were supposed to represent the four virtues of the new republic, which are benevolent loyalty, integrity and shame. And then there were supposed to be five buttons down the front which symbolized the separation of the five powers. And then there are three small cuff buttons which were supposed to represent three people's principles. You get it? It was embedded with all these values that were put forward by the founder of the republic, Sun Yat Sen, who was not a communist.

[Antonia Finnay]

The so called Mao suit was actually worn by the officials of that earlier government.

[Derek Guy]

This is just what government officials war. And this continues into 1949 when the Communists take over, they're still wearing these suits. And then under communism, technically everyone in China works for the government.

[Antonia Finnay]

The workforce gradually became a state workforce with accompanying regulations for uniforms to be worn by the railway workers, the teachers, the policemen and so on.

[Derek Guy]

A lot of professions were required to wear some version of this suit.

[Antonia Finnay]

In an economy where there was very little spare money, those working clothes were sometimes also your non working clothes, your leisure clothes.

[Derek Guy]

But the wild part was there wasn't any overt rule saying it was compulsory to wear this uniform all the time. But everybody did.

[Antonia Finnay]

Jacket and trousers is the clothing of the worker, the peasant and the soldier. You don't do any of those things wearing skirts or robes. It really became very, very standard. What people wanted to wear in the

[Derek Guy]

1950s, there were tiny variations. You could have like a slightly different style pocket or F. Fascinating. A little range of colors and materials. But it was never meant to be pushed too far. Anyone who stood out too much could come under criticism.

[Antonia Finnay]

For example, wearing your jacket undone, this is sort of standard, laid back, Western style. Chinese always buttoned all of those up. If you didn't button it, someone would say something to you. Oh, your wife would say something to you, your kids might say something to you. You should button it.

[Derek Guy]

This was a style that was enforced by society.

[Antonia Finnay]

Even though it seems as though the society is doing this to themselves, you have to remember how important the state is.

[Derek Guy]

Everyone was falling into step to regulate each other.

[Antonia Finnay]

Well, it is a regime of fear. You know that fear being noticed because it will bring trouble on them. Clothing conformity is absolutely part of that.

[Derek Guy]

And it doesn't mean there wasn't resistance. But usually it was in absurdly tiny ways, like this moment of rebell chronicled in the famous memoir Wild Swans.

[Julie Bluset]

My mother had been longing to wear a dash of color.

[Derek Guy]

My friend Julie is reading this part when author Zhongrong talks about how her mother rebelled in the 1960s.

[Julie Bluset]

My mother turned her pink collar out and spent the whole day feeling terribly excited and nervous. Mrs. Ting was even more daring. She not only turned her collar outside her uniform, but rolled up her sleeves so that a broad band of pink showed on each arm. My mother was staggered, almost awestruck at this defiance. As expected, there were plenty of disapproving glasses, but Mrs. Ting held her chin up.

[Derek Guy]

Wearing anything other than a Mao suit was shocking and got attention, which is funny because now it's the exact opposite.

[Julie Bluset]

If you wear a Mao suit in China, people will stare at you.

[Derek Guy]

Julie Bluset is the China correspondent for the Dutch paper the Volkskrant. And this was her question.

[Julie Bluset]

Fashion always goes in cycles, so you would expect this year. It's 50 years since Mao died. 50 years since the Cultural Revolution ended. Why hasn't it made a comeback yet?

[Derek Guy]

Today, Mao suits are actually kind of hard to find. Most were worn to smithereens and thrown out, and only a few were preserved by collectors, like this guy that Julie

[Julie Bluset]

found arriving for the interview with the Mao suit guy.

[Derek Guy]

Deng was born in 1977. He remembers the suits from his childhood and he really admired that these Mao suits were always custom made, like your mom or your tailor would make them for you, out of sturdy, long lasting materials. It's the kind of stuff menswear guys would drool over today. And Deng is particularly partial to the Mao suits that were made for the military, which were extra durable and practical in kind of a gorpcore way.

[Julie Bluset]

He said, like, even though this was a period of time where China was extremely poor, they like channeled all their creativity and money into creating these extremely utilitarian, highly functional, beautiful garments.

[Derek Guy]

So this collector, like, he loves clothes. It's not like he's into Mao.

[Julie Bluset]

I mean, this is a guy who really cares about Materials. I didn't get the sense that it was a very nationalist idea.

[Derek Guy]

But Deng does not dare wear his collection of Mao suits out.

[Julie Bluset]

So he was like, yeah, that actually makes me very uncomfortable. So he just collects it.

[Derek Guy]

The main person you're gonna see wearing a mouse suit these days and only sometimes is President Xi Jinping.

[Julie Bluset]

It is meaningful that that Xi Jinping is still wearing a Mao suit.

[Derek Guy]

What does it mean?

[Julie Bluset]

It means that he sees himself as part of that tradition and part of those same aspirations as Mao had before him to a certain extent.

[Derek Guy]

But what the Mao suit symbolizes, that sort of mass enforced uniformity, will never happen again, at least not with clothes. Like President Xi tried to regulate fashion, he proposed a new law in 2023.

[Julie Bluset]

Basically, it proposed to outlaw clothing or symbols that were detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

[Derek Guy]

The language was intentionally vague.

[Julie Bluset]

And then it seemed like it was also targeting people in drag, guys wearing what you could call women's clothing.

[Derek Guy]

And this proposed legislation did not pass.

[Julie Bluset]

There were so many people who were just like, this is something that we. He will not accept.

[Derek Guy]

After Mao died, the state could no longer regulate fashion, and it was never going to again. The toothpaste was out of the tube,

[Julie Bluset]

and I thought that that was very meaningful because obviously it takes a lot for Chinese people to go on social media and voice their disapproval of any government policy.

[Derek Guy]

People in China never want to lose the ability to dress in the way they want.

[Julie Bluset]

The great mission of Xi Jinping is the great rejuvenation of the nation. And so I think there is a sense of, like, what does that look like? What does the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people look like? To be honest, I do not think that's the Mao suit at all. I think that's definitely more in the direction of the Hanfu. It's looking like the princesses.

[Derek Guy]

Young people prefer to dress like royals from hundreds of years ago. Certainly more than they want to wear the Mao suit, and actually even more than they want to wear the tight, cosmopolitan qipao. The qipao is for grandmas.

[Casey Hall]

Yeah, qipao's for grandmas.

[Derek Guy]

Shanghai correspondent Casey Hall.

[Casey Hall]

Again, most Chinese women will wear a qipao on their wedding day. I actually wear a qipao as my engagement party.

[Derek Guy]

But by and large, people don't tend to wear qipao in a normal, everyday way. The only people who do that tend to be older.

[Casey Hall]

Maybe it's because they were something they were prevented from wearing when they were young. It became something more special for them, you know, you know, young people are not going to embrace that style so easily when it's something they see their mum or their grandma wearing.

[Derek Guy]

And there's another reason the qipao isn't as popular now.

[Antonia Finnay]

Qipao in particular has faced a lot of difficulties in establishing itself as national dress.

[Casey Hall]

Why?

[Derek Guy]

Because it's sexy? Well, no, just embarrassing myself in front

[Antonia Finnay]

of Professor Finne, actually, because qi is the other word for Manchu, Qipao.

[Derek Guy]

That dress can literally translate to the robe of the Manchurian people.

[Antonia Finnay]

Very, very difficult for this to be formally adopted as national dress because there

[Derek Guy]

is a Manchu minority, unlike, again, the vast majority of Chinese who are ethnically Han, many of whom feel like they have been robbed of their ethnic style for hundreds of years and who like to dress like that earlier Ming Dynasty,

[Antonia Finnay]

hence the whole idea of Hamful. Go back to the Han dynasty and you might find something that is purely Han that hasn't been adulterated by all these aliens. The Manchus, the Mongols, the west, the Japanese.

[Derek Guy]

A younger generation is digging deeper and deeper into Chinese history and brands are following behind them. After the break, We can all agree that housing is expensive. Whether you're paying rent or a mortgage, it's. That's a huge percentage of your income. It stings every single month. But it can feel a little better with bilt. Let me explain. BILT started out as a rewards program rewarding members on their rent. And now, as of 2026, BILT members can also earn points on mortgage payments wherever they live. Every housing payment earns you points that you can use towards flights on United or stays at Hyatt or lyft rides or Amazon.com purchases and so much more. Built members also get access to a neighborhood concierge that can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, find new local spots, all while being rewarded at over 45,000 merchant partners. But I personally love redeeming my built points for Lyft rides. It's like a little magic trip.

[Julie Bluset]

Whoop.

[Derek Guy]

My rides are magically cheaper just for paying my rent, which I was going to do anyway. Join the membership for where you [e-mail] art articles. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com articles. Make sure to use that URL so they know I sent you. When you run a small business, you're not just doing the thing that you're good at doing. You're also the hiring manager, the payroll department, the benefits team, the Ombudsman usually all before lunch. Doesn't give you a lot of time to do the thing you actually want to do. Let yourself get a little help from Gusto. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small business businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire onboard and support your team from anywhere. Gusto is the one website you and your employees can go to for automatic payroll filings, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter benefits, workers comp 401k, you name it. Gusto makes it simple and they have options for nearly every budget. Also, Gusto is really there to lend you a helping hand. You can get direct access to certified HR experts to support you through any tough HR situation. Try gusto [e-mail] articles and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free [e-mail] articles one more time gusto.com articles it really does seem so hard to simply find the time to relax and exhale and be with the ones you love. One in two Americans report feeling lonely or disconnected. So it's not just you. We need each other now more than ever. Macy's is using this moment to make a commitment to bring people together at a time when connection feels harder than ever. Macy's has relaunched its social impact platform Mission Everyone, focusing on sparking togetherness in everyday life. Macy's is committing $100 million to strengthen connection and belonging to for 50 million people, that's a huge impact. This is support that's gonna go to organizations like the American Red Cross or community partners like Big Brothers, Big Sisters. And Macy's is also creating community hubs in their stores. Can you say that about most major American retailers? Macy's is a company with conscience. Shop in store or online@macy's.com Ivy loves to wear Hanfu and dress up like a dynastic princess.

[Ivy Ye]

Nowadays we should wear more traditional clothes

[Yebu Ji]

in your daily lives.

[Derek Guy]

She's worked in fashion, PR and tech and when she worked at Alipay, a huge company like the way that everybody pays for stuff on their phones in China, Ayv Ye was the leader of Alipay's Hanfu Club, where everyone could wear Hanfu on Fridays and it became like a casual Friday sort of thing. Friday, like Casual Friday in the office? Yeah, sure. Amateur hour over here. I committed the cardinal sin of recording in a restaurant. So you can't really hear what Ivy is saying, but I'll summarize. She said at work, her Hanfu club wore so called modern Hanfu. It wasn't overtly walking around looking like Queen Amidala. Like all the girls I saw in the Forbidden City, there are companies making casual versions of the 1400s clothes. Ivy showed me a picture of them. Okay, so it's like a. So it's like a long, traditional looking, but with like a cool little blouse. It's really lovely. It only sort of vaguely references the empress clothing, but way toned down. So toned down that I realized I'd actually seen it before. Oh, my God. That's what the Adidas dress was. Oh, my God. There was this skirt that I saw at the Adidas store in China, which I thought was so cool, and I almost bought it, but I didn't realize that that might have been a version of modern Hanfu. After dinner, Ivy brought me to the nearest Adidas, which wasn't hard to find, there are so many malls in Shanghai.

[Ivy Ye]

So I asked, do you have the dress? She asked, do you say the Xin zhongshi, the new Chinese style, the Ma Mian train.

[Derek Guy]

And Ivy asked them about that skirt that I liked, and they were like, yeah, the Hanfu inspired one.

[Ivy Ye]

You are right. This skirt is really is truly inspired by the Chinese style, the ma Mian trim.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Wow.

[Derek Guy]

So it's totally sold out. The Chinese history inspired clothing is wildly popular now. And I mean, it's great. I love it. And Adidas is especially going buck wild with it. Yeah, you see all the elements, like in contemporary fashion.

[Ivy Ye]

Yeah, More and more Chinese elements on

[Derek Guy]

the fashion brand, sports brand, and sometimes it's a little controversial, like when Adidas released this track jacket with these knot buttons all down the front, and it kind of looks like a magua, which is Manchurian.

[William Zhang]

Did you know that this Adidas jacket is the most hated jacket in China right now?

[Derek Guy]

The Internet, it flipped out. This TikTok goes on to explain that this jacket is based on a Manchurian style which was mandated during the Manchurian period when all the Han styles and Han fu was taken away. And he characterizes the Manchurian dynasty, the Qing dynasty, as a bad era in China because it coincided with the Western industrial revolution, but chose not to engage with it. And this period is known in China as the century of humiliation. So ipso facto, this tiktoker says no one wants to be reminded of the Manchurian clothes of the Qing dynasty.

[William Zhang]

I still think it's pretty fire and it's an important part of China's history. But what do you think?

[Derek Guy]

I mean, what do I know? I think the Jacket looks great. I love that Adidas jacket. I think it's so cool. Same with the Qipao. I love both of these styles, but both are Manchurian and so they're a little controversial. But I was like, what is going on here? Is this racist that nothing is considered really Chinese that's Manchurian?

[Professor Ko Ren]

Nobody really thinks of themselves as Manchu. Right. Because there were so few Manchu around, even the early 20th century.

[Derek Guy]

Professor Ko Ren teaches cultural history at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, although I happened to catch him while he was in Taiwan. He is like most Chinese, ethnically Han.

[Antonia Finnay]

Probably.

[Professor Ko Ren]

That's my ethnicity. As far as I know, it's Han. Right. People are 90, 92% Han.

[Derek Guy]

And sure, there's some thought that Han Fu is about ethnic Han superiority.

[Professor Ko Ren]

There's an Australian scholar who thinks that it's all about Han chauvinism as ethnic nationalism. And there may be something to that. Some people might argue against something like Han Fu, which I see as a bit more complicated.

[Derek Guy]

Han Fu is not entirely about the glory in the past of the Han ethnicity. In some ways it's popular for practical reasons, like it's looser and more comfortable than the tight fitting Qipao.

[Professor Ko Ren]

It actually reveals less.

[Derek Guy]

It's much more comfortable.

[Professor Ko Ren]

Yeah, right, right. It's flowy, long sleeves.

[Derek Guy]

The Hanfu movement also became a bit of a catch all, like a shorthand for getting into everything ancient, including clothes from the Song and Tang Dynasty and lots of other dynasties. Like, you see it if you go to Xi' an in the west, which is Professor Ren's hometown, the capital of

[Professor Ko Ren]

the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century, and you can see all these young women walking around in the touristy spots. They're wearing like mock Tang Dynasty dress. Right. Like, I see that as a genre of Hanfu, even though it's not from the Han Dynasty.

[Derek Guy]

It's just that the Manchurian era, the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty, became touchy.

[Professor Ko Ren]

I was trained as a Qing historian. Qing is 1644-1911. Right. So it really goes right up to the cusp of World War I.

[Derek Guy]

The Manchurians conquered a lot of what is considered modern China, including Tibet and Inner Mongolia and what was historically Manchuria.

[Professor Ko Ren]

So politically, China needs to claim all these areas. Mainland China, PRC today still claims the territory of 18th century Qing Empire.

[Derek Guy]

So it's interesting. You'd think China would be like, yeah, this is all our land, this is all us. That they would be all about the Qing Dynasty.

[Professor Ko Ren]

And for a while they were in the late 1990s. Throughout the 2000s, there was this Qing Dynasty craze.

[Derek Guy]

There were a lot of TV shows about the Qing Dynasty, like this extremely popular show from 1998 called My Fair Princess, which was sort of a prince, and the pop story about mistaken identities among two princesses. And this kind of plot was much easier to do in the Manchu period. Royal costume didn't look that much more extravagant than the commoner's costume.

[Professor Ko Ren]

So this was really popular for a while.

[Derek Guy]

Shows like this really kicked off the interest in dressing like a princess.

[Professor Ko Ren]

I think the legacy of that is the princesses that still walk around the Forbidden Palace.

[Derek Guy]

At the same time, the Qing Dynasty, the Manchurians, were coming under some scrutiny.

[Professor Ko Ren]

The generation of scholars that came before my current generation, people working in the

[Derek Guy]

90s, this was a movement called New Qing History.

[Professor Ko Ren]

There's a group, especially from North America, who began to study the Manchu language.

[Derek Guy]

And they proposed that the Qing was not just another Chinese empire, that it was different ethnically and culturally.

[Professor Ko Ren]

And it's brought a lot of new sort of understandings about the Qing Empire and also what came before it, what came after it.

[Derek Guy]

Then the Chinese state started eyeing these very suspiciously, like, what are these foreign Qing scholars doing messing with our notions of history and Chinese identity and what land is ours?

[Professor Ko Ren]

And so Qing history becomes fraught to be debated in public. There's been a move away in terms of popular culture, and I'm thinking about movies and TV drama, away from the Qing Dynasty. This is with some state. I don't know if interference is the right word, but encouragement, because they're uptight about telling the history of the Qing Dynasty.

[Derek Guy]

And then Hanfu came in to sort of shift the conversation away from the Qing Dynasty.

[Professor Ko Ren]

Tan Fu kind of slipped in partly to discourage popular talk about the Qing,

[Derek Guy]

while keeping this lucrative and very fun historical trend totally intact.

[Professor Ko Ren]

But of course, the people that you're interested in, the people who are interested in dressing up like princesses and the people we encounter in the streets are

[Derek Guy]

not the scholars, although they're getting there. There's a massive popular interest in archaeology and museums and all kinds of Chinese history.

[Professor Ko Ren]

A lot of local museums, provincial museums, a museum boom.

[Derek Guy]

And it's not just about Han identity,

[Ivy Ye]

because China is a mix. All the cultures, all the kind of people, they come together.

[Derek Guy]

Ivy, the founder of the casual Friday Han Fu Club, likes to wear everything from Chinese history. She wears qipao, she wears Tibetan clothes, she wears Uyghur clothes. She's just exploring different cultures and fashion history.

[Casey Hall]

Oh, she's uyghur yes.

[Derek Guy]

And she's really good at it. Oh, my God. And this is you. You look amazing. For so many people who engage in Hanfu, this is just self expression and curiosity. And it's just a curious anthropological experiment. Ivy, that's so good to her. They are all parts of Chinese history, and they all feed into a larger fashion movement that's called. And I'm gonna butcher this.

[William Zhang]

Gou Xiao Go Qiao is like. It's a recent trend in China.

[Derek Guy]

Ivy's boyfriend William stepped in here to explain it to me.

[William Zhang]

People are more and more combining the Chinese traditional thing with the modern elements. Okay, yeah.

[Derek Guy]

Would Adidas be Guo Chao?

[William Zhang]

No.

[Antonia Finnay]

Yeah.

[William Zhang]

No.

[Julie Bluset]

Yeah.

[William Zhang]

No.

[Derek Guy]

Ivy and William bicker in this really cute way.

[William Zhang]

Only one single product, but also. But in total, it's still a Western brand. Okay.

[Derek Guy]

This is a huge philosophical debate right now. Can a Western brand just tack on Chinese elements and be like, we're Chinese now? Like, I had arrived shortly after Chinese New Year, and all the major brands were putting out all this horse branded stuff for Year of the Horse. Does that do it?

[Ivy Ye]

Adding Chinese elements, you can call Guo Chao.

[Professor Ko Ren]

That's our.

[William Zhang]

Otherwise, if Dior use horse face, can you call Dior a Guo Chao brand?

[Derek Guy]

And I think this is particularly a source of tension because China is in the middle of a big fashion reinvention. There's a new generation of fashion designers who are proving that made in China does not mean cheap knockoffs.

[Casey Hall]

I mean, all of these are young Chinese designers, and you can see elements of. Of traditional Chinese design in what they're doing, but they've really updated it for modern life.

[Derek Guy]

Casey hall, the consumerism reporter, told me this is a phenomenon where children of apparel manufacturers don't just want to make flimsy clothes for the foreign market. They want to make high quality clothes for Chinese customers.

[Casey Hall]

You'll notice a lot of the collars, like the short collars, some of the buttons and enclosures, they, you know, they look like what you would imagine in a traditional Chinese outfit. But the cuts and the figures are not necessarily what you would see in traditional Chinese.

[Derek Guy]

High end designers are updating traditional styles, incorporating Chinese motifs and symbols. Oh, it does look like a tea bag. One example of this is a Chinese luxury leather handbag company called Songmont.

[William Zhang]

Songmont. Its brand is totally Guochou.

[Yebu Ji]

Okay.

[Derek Guy]

Both William and Ivy could agree that Songmont was a shining example of Guaqu. These bags are all made in China, and elements of the bags subtly resemble Chinese cultural talisman. And this one's designed to look like, oh, a kite. So there are these, like subtle nods in it. I mean, some of these nods work better than others, but the bags are all full of references from across China and Chinese history. So it has these Tibetan beads. And of course the Chinese government loves this. What better way to unite the population and expand a sense of the culture and history of China than through this, like, modern fashion, fashion diplomacy.

[Professor Ko Ren]

It's just about China having a lot of history. But having a lot of history means that China is a country with a long civilization and it needs to be taken seriously by the world.

[Derek Guy]

Professor Ren Again, the consumers of Kung

[Professor Ko Ren]

fu are also the generation that's seen the country become much more prosperous.

[Derek Guy]

The pride and patriotism makes so much sense. There's this undeniable optimism in China, this feeling of being on the up and up. But conversely, there isn't a lot of reason to feel any differently.

[Julie Bluset]

I think it's also just like not being used to seeing media that's constantly talking about all the things that are wrong within your own country.

[Derek Guy]

There is a great digital wall between China and the rest of the world. No Google, no Instagram. I could not even get my VPN to work in the hotel. Wi Fi. The criticism does not come in, which is something that Julie Blouset, the Dutch journalist who writes for the Volkskrand, thinks about a lot.

[Julie Bluset]

Just yesterday I was just looking at my own newspaper's website and I think top five article or something was like, one of the worst things that the Netherlands have done is our child care system or something like that. And I was like, this is just. If only I could show this to the Chinese people who I'm interviewing just to give them a sense of how used we are to constantly criticizing our own government and not feeling like that means that we don't love our country or we don't appreciate our country.

[Derek Guy]

I've been thinking a lot about this recently as America has hosted our pathetic 250th birthday celebration. My country embarrasses me and pains me so much for reasons that you don't have to hear me harp on and on about. And yet I love Americans. I love our stupid optimism and how friendly we are and how we jaywalk and drive too fast and compliment random strangers. I am so American through and through. I mean, I love this nutty messed up place so much. And the most shocking thing for me about China, more than the self parking cars or the fact that there are fat orange cats on the Great Wall or that women walk around dressing like Dynastic princesses is that in China, I felt the same way. I was like, I love this messed up place. There was so much that I found objectively terrifying, like the fact that you have to go through a metal detector to use public transit. And yet there was so much that I met the most amazing people. I ate delicious food. I loved all the new design and the fashion. I understand that sense of new Chinese pride.

[Professor Ko Ren]

There's cultural confidence among young Chinese people, right? I can see my own students I might try to discourage a little bit.

[Derek Guy]

Not because you shouldn't love your country. Professor Ren put it well, once you

[Professor Ko Ren]

feel too strongly about one place, you start to to think about other places as just opposites or foils and not as complicated places. And then you lose sight of how your own place is actually complicated.

[Derek Guy]

And I decided to embrace this cultural complexity by buying a bunch of new, expensive Chinese designer clothes. They're so cool. Huge thanks to Julie Blusey, my Mao suit correspondent, and Yebu Qi, my favorite pessimist, the one who brought me to China in the first place. Thank you both for inspiring this story and for taking an early listen to it. Thank you also to Casey hall and William Zhang for being my local guides. Drew Haupt for taking pictures and being the best travel companion and everyone who I approached on the street. I am again so sorry about my Chinese pronunciation. Big shout out. Also to Ellen Horn and Dan Pashman. Music as ever, is by Ray, Royal Lilatone and Sesame. And if you want to see how the Manchu robe evolved into the Qipao and get a look at what some of these princesses are dressed like, head to articlesofinterest.substack.com and by the way, now that you've made it all the way here to the end of the credits, I have a fun little announcement to make. I'm starting a new series with Derek Guy, who you might know as the Twitter menswear guy. He's a friend of the show he's been on before. But we're going to start reading all of the great fashion philosophers together and bring you our summaries, insights, and the ways that these foundational thinkers have built our modern concepts of fashion and what we wear. I'm really excited. I'm already learning so much. It's going to come up on the substack, so subscribe if you want to stay in the A loop. Radiotopia

[Casey Hall]

from PRX.