Asma al-Assad

as exposed people to this like uncomfortable truth that like fashion is ruled by the people who can afford it basically and like couturiers have no duty to be um discerning a lot of the time when it comes to their clientele and there's a really good series by the the fashion writer louis pisano who i think is paris based and very in touch with the couture and it's called couture and corruption he made like a tiktok series out of it but he also has a really long sub stack article of kind of chronicling a lot of these women from fashion history until like the present day so definitely shout out to him because he was a very valuable resource to

me there are a couple other moments i feel like are also relevant now which is that kim jong-un's daughter his teenage daughter has been designated as his successor so she's like she's like the mini contrast essentially her name is kim ju-ae though no one really knows that's her real name And then someone we'll talk about as well, Asma al-Assad, is currently pleading for a normal wife after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria in 2024 and allegedly filing for divorce.

She's probably the most contemporary woman on this list because she...

There's something very millennial about her.

I feel like I maybe shared it with you guys.

I might actually share it with the Discord, my insane dream

about Asma al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad.

That's very

Uh, it's no joke.

Luna's friend used to work for President Assad's wife, Asma.

Now she's one of the many people labeled Flul, an Arabic word meaning the remnants of a defeated army.

In today's Syria, it's used more broadly for anyone seen as loyal to the old regime, and that label has left her exposed.

So one podcast I'd like to recommend is a podcast called They Call Her Emma.

And I think it's like a six or five part podcast where it's basically about Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian dictator.

And it's just... fascinating it's a compelling listen and if you're interested in you know basically politics history anything like that i think you'd really really enjoy it Because Asma al-Assad was basically from the UK, brought up here.

And, you know, it's just incredible, the journey and the situation.

And now they're in exile in Russia.

What, what are your reflections? Like, what do you think this says most broadly about whether it's the political moment we're in or fashion's place in the culture? You know, there does seem to be, certainly with Anna Wintour alone, um, a bit of a history of, say, overlooking people's bad behavior, uh, and just, uh, looking at the glamour instead.

I mean, I know that you, I think, have spoken on your own podcast, uh, about the decision that she made to feature a hugely controversial profile of Asma al-Assad.

Uh, she was the first lady of the Syrian dictator.

This was in 2011, and, you know, the profile was titled A Rose in the Desert, and it portrayed the Syrian first lady as glamorous, modernizing, and something of a democratic reformer, just as I believe a brutal government crackdown was beginning.