It began, as many great internet stories do, with a joke at home. In 2024, Nurbiye had gained a little weight and found that some of her clothes no longer fit the way they used to. Instead of letting the outfits sit untouched in the wardrobe, she handed them to her husband, Mardan, and asked him to try them on.
What happened next surprised them both. Mardan (36), put on Nurbiye's clothes and suddenly looked less like a husband helping out with a closet problem and more like a living mannequin in an experimental fashion shoot. Nurbiye (37) was surprised by how good he looked in her clothes and even compared him to a member of the Italian rock band Måneskin.
"He had the temperament of Måneskin, like a rockstar," Nurbiye recalled the moment as we chat via video call.
They laughed, filmed a short video and posted it online just for fun and it went viral almost overnight.
For Nurbiye and Mardan, who live in Foshan, Guangdong Province, but are Uygur and originally from Urumqi in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the attention was unexpected.
"We didn't post a lot of videos before this. We are not celebrities, our videos don't go viral either," she said. "It's crazy," added Mardan.
Initially, friends had warned the couple that people might react badly to a man wearing women's clothing, and the pair even agreed they would delete the post if the comments became too harsh. But instead of rejection, they mostly found curiosity, amusement and a wave of support. Viewers were fascinated by the way Mardan carried the clothes, and many began joking that Nurbiye's husband looked better in her outfits than she did.
Before the viral moment, they had never planned to enter the fashion industry.
"It wasn't us choosing fashion," they said. "It was fashion that found us."
Their story as a couple began long before the clothes. They met through mutual friends and spent about a month chatting online before meeting in person. At first, Nurbiye found Mardan's slicked-back hair and serious appearance a little intimidating.
"He looked like a gangster with his hair pulled back," she laughed.
But his gentle manner soon changed her mind. After many offers to take her out for coffee, he finally got a date, drew a portrait of her and pursued her patiently. After several years together, the happy couple married in 2019.
Art has always been part of their relationship and has led to their fashion world entry.