How did Puccini and fashion shape the perception of Japan in Western Europe? The story of the geisha Cho-san, refracted through the lens of opera, costume, and myths, will be revealed in a lecture by fashion historians. At the turn of the 19th to 20th century, Europe experienced a true cultural excitement: Japan, long closed to the outside world, finally opens its doors. Everything-from porcelain and screens to kimonos and kabuki theater-inspired artists of the Art Nouveau era. Interiors filled with items of Eastern aesthetics, fashionable ladies posed in kimonos, and Japanese themes consumed literature and stage. One of the most vivid artistic images of that time was the heroine of Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madam Butterfly." The story of the young Cho-san, naive and tragically in love, formed in the minds of Europeans a recognizable and still enduring archetype of the Japanese geisha. But how much does this image correspond to reality? Where does documentary end and exoticized myth begin? The lecture "Madam Butterfly or Cho-san?" is part of the series "On Fashion and People," where fashion historians Andrey Skatkov and Maria Orlova explore how the Western gaze reinterpreted Eastern femininity. Together with the audience, they will discuss stage costumes, fashion borrowings, and cultural stereotypes shaped by theater and opera. The event is suitable for anyone interested in the history of fashion, theater, intercultural influences, and visual culture.