"Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story"

For years, Hamilton has been my favorite musical. I first watched it when it was released on Disney+ in 2020, and ever since, I've known every lyric by heart. Yet the song that stayed with me most was the finale, "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." There was something about those words that felt profoundly meaningful, though I couldn't quite explain why they resonated with me so deeply.

Yesterday, my mom surprised me with tickets to see Hamilton on Broadway. After nearly six years of being a fan, I was finally going to hear the musical live. But as incredible as the choreography, costumes, and rap battles were, what stayed with me most was the final song: “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” I had always found the song powerful, but hearing it in the theater, now that I was older, made me understand it differently. Sitting there, I couldn’t help but think about the work I do through Queen Esther.

Every blog post and Instagram caption I write is, in some way, an attempt to answer that question.

History often remembers the most visible figures. But behind every industry, movement, or cultural shift are people whose stories have quietly faded from public memory. One of my favorite parts of writing about fashion history is uncovering those forgotten names and bringing them back into the conversation.

A few weeks ago, while visiting the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I learned about Gilbert Adrian, one of the most influential costume and fashion designers of the twentieth century. Somehow, I had never heard of him. Adrian designed costumes for countless Hollywood films and helped shape American fashion. Most famously, he created Dorothy’s ruby slippers for The Wizard of Oz. Yet despite his enormous influence, many people today have never heard his name.

That realization reminded me why I started Queen Esther in the first place.

Fashion history is filled with remarkable individuals whose contributions deserve to be remembered. Many of the Jewish women I write about transformed industries, built businesses, and influenced culture. Yet their names are often absent from textbooks and popular conversations. Someone has to tell their stories. That is why I feel obligated to tell the stories of people like Martin Greenfield, a Holocaust survivor who learned to sew in Auschwitz and went on to become one of America’s most celebrated bespoke tailors, and Edith Flagg, another Holocaust survivor who introduced polyester to the American fashion market.

Hamilton itself is built on this idea. The musical’s final moments focus not only on Alexander Hamilton, but on his wife, Eliza. After his death, she spent decades preserving his legacy, collecting his papers, founding an orphanage, and ensuring that history would remember him. The show’s final message is that legacy is not simply about what you accomplish. It is also about who preserves your story afterward.

As I left the theater, I kept thinking about how history is shaped not only by the people who make it, but by the people who choose to record it. Without Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alexander Hamilton might not be remembered by this generation in the same way, despite his outsized influence on America’s founding.

That is the power of storytelling.

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

For me, that question has become the heart of Queen Esther.