With over 7 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.

Today, we all get dressed.

Welcome to Dressed, the history of fashion, a podcast that explores the who-what-when-of-why-we-where-we-our-fashion-storians and your hosts, Cassidy Zachary.

And April Callahan.

Cass, I am going to admit something upfront that this week's episodes, and I say episodes because it's part one and part two this week,

well, they are for me a bit of a delicious forbidden fruit.

Scottish fashion historian Cassie Richie is going to join us to talk about her work on the magical, mysterious, and mystifying purple one himself, Prince.

And I say forbidden fruit because I was raised in a hyper-religious household, and I was never allowed to listen to Prince's music or watch his videos or his movies.

So, he might be wondering, how did that all play out?

Well, you know, I think we know for most tweens and teens where there is a will, there is a way.

So, Cass, I'm curious, were you a fan of Prince growing up?

Oh, yeah, and I mean, I still am a huge Prince fan.

I mean, let's go crazy is like my life anthem. I listen to that song whenever I need to dance or just like a pick me up.

You know, just one of his many, many songs that always gets me feeling good, but yeah, huge Prince fan.

And that's of course why we're so pleased that Cassie's joining us today to share her extensive research and work on one of the 20th and 21st centuries most prolific and iconic artists.

And we say artists because Prince's creativity and creations pushed far beyond the realm of music, which he may be best known for.

He's an arguably a performance artist of the utmost caliber and his sortorial stylings, I mean, come on.

They're integral to his work and they often refreshingly challenged notions of cis, heteronormativity and black masculinity.

And Donna tell Versace actually once remarked on Prince's impact and she said, quote, he showed men what playing with your own image really meant.

He showed men how to dare and most importantly to not be afraid to be who they are. He ignored rules. He did what made him feel good without caring of people's judgments.

And perhaps for that reason, he seemed to operate on this entirely different sphere from the rest of us completely embodying his given name of Prince Rogers Nelson, who is of course the subject of Cassie's book on his royal badness, the life and legacy of Princess fashion.

Cassie, thank you so much for joining us.

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