The collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I brought an end to Ottoman identity with its many symbols, classic and reinvented traditions. This paper examines the refashioning of clothing, not in the new Turkish republic, but amongst Kurdish nationalists, former loyal Ottoman subjects, who now sought to advance Kurdish national claims and identity in the post-Ottoman era. I focus in particular on a group of urban educated Kurdish elites who went into exile in Syria and Lebanon under the French mandate following the foundation of Kemalist regime in Turkey. Sons of old Kurdish elite families, such as Jaladet and Kamuran Bedirkhan or Akram and Qadri Jamilpashazade had been and considered themselves part of an Ottoman intelligentsia. However, the breakup of the Empire and the rise of the ethnic Turkish nationalism in Turkey left them no choice but to adopt a Kurdish nationalist stance. In exile, they initiated a cultural renaissance movement under the auspices of the French mandate authorities in the 1930s and 1940s. Their cultural activities included publishing books and periodicals in Kurdish and French, and aimed at awakening national sentiments among the Kurdish masses, along with introducing the Kurdish question to the Western world. In their writings, clothing appeared an important theme for distinguishing Kurds from other nations. Thus, by analyzing the writings of the former Ottoman Kurdish elites before and after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, I show how clothing continued to be a signifier of their identities, first Ottomanism and then Kurdish nationalism. More specifically my presentation explains how the meaning of classic Ottoman articles of clothing, and especially the fez, changed over time for the Kurdish nationalists, how they responded to the Kemalist clothing reform, which was imposed upon the Kurds of Turkey, and how they promoted traditional Kurdish clothing as a unique national dress.