Something strange unfolds online each spring. As the warmer months approach, many men seem compelled to post about the allure of a woman in a sundress. The simple wardrobe staple has long been a point of inexplicable obsession, but this year, people are asking questions.

Why do some men get so excited to see sundresses? Wait — do men even know what a sundress is? Does anyone know what a sundress is? As social media flooded with responses, it became clear that no one could quite agree on what made a sundress a sundress (as opposed to a slip dress, a day dress, a shift dress, a shirtdress, a caftan, a tube dress or a nap dress).

So we want to unravel this thread a bit, and ask you, the reader, to answer the question at hand: What is a sundress?

Many people say sundresses are bright and floral, maybe blue or yellow. White is widely accepted. Pastels are classic. Black is divisive. No one really talks about gray.

On the resale platform Depop, a seller named Bianca Steele listed a “Boho Black Sundress 100% Viscose sundress made in India.” The inky maxi was “most definitely” a sundress, Ms. Steele wrote over the in-app messenger, adding that she had personally enjoyed black sundresses for over four decades. She currently owns at least 10.

But Jeannie Stith, the chief executive of Color Guru, a seasonal color analysis company, said she can’t condone a black sundress. “In general, black has been sold to us as a universal color,” she said. “It’s actually not.”

Ms. Stith said that universally flattering shades had a mix of warm and cool tones. For sundresses, that includes peony, periwinkle, teal and sage.

While out in Lower Manhattan on a recent afternoon, three sundress-wearers — blocks apart — said a sundress can be any color that makes you happy. Though each acknowledged that being sad in a sundress was also valid.

“You’ve left me no choice but to mansplain women’s fashion,” Randy Trembacki told viewers on TikTok in May. Gesturing around the empty space where he would insert an image of a mini dress from Shein, Mr. Trembecki, a 30-year-old podcast producer based in Texas, named some features of a sundress: fitted top, flowy bottom.

On the phone this month, he elaborated: “It’s conservative but revealing. You know music videos circa early 2010s, where it’s the farmer’s daughter type thing?”

But he acknowledged that his viewpoint was not universal. Much of the feedback he received on his original TikTok came from Black viewers with different ideas about the quintessential sundress.

In “Sundress Pt. 2,” Mr. Trembacki addressed comments like: “Ask any black person what a sundress is and you’re gonna have the OPPOSITE answer.” In response, Mr. Trembacki included a clingy slip by Skims as an example of a sundress.

“The Black community’s preference for form-fitting, long dresses might emphasize a different aspect of allure, one that focuses on visual appeal and the celebration of body contours,” said Shelby Ivey Christie, a fashion historian and former board member of the Black in Fashion Council.

Dictionary definitions of “sundress” typically stipulate sleevelessness.

But how thick is a strap before it becomes a sleeve? Do you have to see shoulder? What about tube tops?

James Hamilton Butler, the director of the associate degree fashion design program at Parsons School of Design, shrugged off the question. Talking about sleeves is outdated, Mr. Butler wrote over email. “We can be who we want without fear of judgment. (Not sure about tube tops though!)”

Sophie Strauss, who calls herself “a stylist for regular people,” says the question of sleeves depends on what the wearer wants to get out of the sundress. In sundress-happy Los Angeles, she sees clients gravitate toward the garment because it tends to “play up parts of women’s bodies we’re told to play up, and downplay parts we’re told to hide,” she said, rattling off brands with big puffy sleeves.

Mr. Trembacki, the TikToker, was not so dogmatic on straps either. “There should be some type of strap,” he said. “Though, there could be no strap, too.”

At some point in recent years, the sundress — traditionally homely and demure — came to take on a peculiar sexual charge. (At least for those who are extremely online.)

On the meme database Know Your Meme, a riff on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs replaces survival requirements like “water,” and “friendship,” with a refrain about sundress-induced activity, too vulgar to print.

What is it that makes “men go crazy for ‘the sundress,’” as a user on X recently put it?

Kyle Brown, a writer who lives in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn and has a bicep tattoo of Joan Didion, offered some insight into the contemporary male gaze.

“It’s all about this pastoral American fantasy,” Mr. Brown said, describing a passionate scene involving a man who has come in from doing yardwork to find his sundress-clad wife in the kitchen baking bread. “Men are confused.”

On the street, more practical considerations still prevail.

Lexi Hide, a photographer who was wearing a Chopova Lowena dress on Fifth Avenue on a hot day, explained her reasoning. “I was thinking that a sundress has to be airy enough to make you not want to wear underwear.” She clarified that she just likes how it feels. “Nice warm breeze,” she said.

It may be that the sundress is more of an idea than an article of clothing. After canvassing Lower Manhattan for a potential consensus, I stopped in to Reformation, a clothing store some consider the mother ship of sundresses.

I couldn’t remember the particular sundress Ms. Strauss, the personal stylist, had mentioned, only that it was named after a type of pasta. When I asked a saleswoman for help, she encouraged me to consider any dress in the store. A sundress is whatever you want it to be, she said, pointing me to a mini fit-and-flare in the shade “Last Tango.”

On a breezy Saturday evening in South L.A., the sounds of heavy kick drums and electric claps trail down the block from a tan, two-story house with a well-manicured lawn. Through the large front window, passersby can catch a glimpse of a DJ in a dimly lighted living room, meticulously turning knobs on a mixer and blending house records together. In the dining room, about 15 people dance and socialize under a crystal chandelier. Dark liquor flows into red cups. A man sits between a woman’s legs as she braids his hair into cornrows, while another guest taps a tambourine to the beat of the music.

From a distance, this scene may look like a typical house party, which is exactly the allure of “Black House Radio,” a YouTube show and L.A. event series spotlighting Black DJs who specialize in house music. Throughout the gathering, no one pays much attention to the cameras recording, and for the hundreds of thousands of viewers at home, watching the videos feels like you’ve been ushered into a high energy kickback.

At a time when DJs are showcasing their skills in creative ways and in sometimes unexpected settings — at parks, on elevators, at the beach, inside loft apartments, in the subway and at laundromats — “Black House Radio” stands out because of its familial charm and devotion to the genre it highlights.

“I want ‘Black House Radio’ to feel like a warm, nostalgic hug from a grandmother,” says founder Michael Donte, who’s also a filmmaker, producer and DJ. He hosts the intimate gathering roughly once a month at his best friend Jeremy’s ancestral house, which his late grandparents bought in 1963 after moving to L.A. from Millport, Ala., during the Second Great Migration. Everything in the home, including a blue-patterned couch, teal-colored carpet, vintage drapes and framed family photos, is in the same place it’s been since the 1970s.

“Black house music was made in our homes,” says Donte. He adds that he felt frustrated when he would go out and see more white DJs getting booked to play house music than Black performers, who created and popularized the genre in the 1970s. Aside from at select events like newcomer TheyHouse and Utopia, which have been elevating house music in L.A. for years. “[A white DJ is] very different than a Black person playing house music — it’s just a feeling.”

“I think my friends and I do a good job of making it a safe space for people to show up as themselves, and that’s just beautiful to watch,” says founder Michael Donte.

Family photos displayed on the wall.

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After getting laid off last year from his job as a creative executive for YouTube Originals, Donte learned how to DJ, and then launched “Black House Radio” to bring the genre back home, literally, by hosting events in spaces that are vital to the Black community, such as family homes, hair salons, barber shops and churches.

Donte hosted the first “Black House Radio” event the day before Thanksgiving in 2023 and served collard greens and cornbread. About a dozen of his friends showed up with their own soul food dishes, while he and three other L.A.-based DJs — Naygod, Silhouwet, DJ Bodii — provided the soundtrack for the hours-long event.

DJ Terrell Brooke and DJ Chinua embrace each other.

Then, in February, during Black History Month, Donte began posting live sets from that November day on YouTube, where he’s since acquired more than 50,000 subscribers and has built a community of loyal house heads who look forward to every drop. The most watched video so far is a set by Ashley Younniä, which had nearly 425,000 views on YouTube as of late June.

Some of L.A.’s most exciting DJs have been past guests, including Terrell Brooke (founder of TheyHouse and co-creator of Casual, Mez (who runs an event called Signal Underground), Rush Davis (a singer, producer, creative director and DJ) and Chrysalis (who toured with singer Rochelle Jordan).

Shaun Ross immediately knew he wanted to be a part of “Black House Radio” when one of his friends shared its Instagram page with him.

“I feel like it’s a train to get on — to actually bring back Black house music,” says Ross, a celebrated model, DJ and recording artist. He’s performed at two “Black House Radio” functions so far. “A lot of DJs don’t really play Black house music, and I feel like today, the world has this wrong notion of what house music is so when you play it, people are like, ‘It’s not hype enough. It’s not giving me a Vegas show.’”

Ross says the YouTube show also gives younger generations the opportunity to go back and look at people who are uplifting house music today. “I love that it’s Black and queer, and I love that it’s healing for everybody here,” adds Ross, who hosts a house music party called “Stardust.”

Michael Donte keeps the house as it is for each of the “Black House Radio” recordings.

“Black House” attendees socialize in the kitchen over slices of pizza and homemade pound cake.

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Back at the party, Vaughan Higgins pours herself a drink in the kitchen as other attendees grab slices of pizza and homemade pound cake. Higgins regularly goes to Black and queer events in L.A. but says being inside a Black ancestral house carries an extra layer of significance for her.

“It mainly makes me think of resistance and survival,” says the L.A.-born musician, who decided to attend because her friend DJ Nico was spinning. “The fact that this house is even still in Black hands and they are using it to bring Black joy — that is all a part of this. It’s really beautiful.”

In many of the YouTube videos, Donte infuses archival footage — some that he’s found online and others that his friends have given him — of Black families dancing at cookouts or participating in praise and worship at church — his way of preserving Black culture, he says.

“That’s one thing I feel like is missing from video streaming,” says Sevyn, who performed a groovy DJ set for ”Black House Radio” in April. “I feel like compared to other streaming things I’ve done, this one just has a story and also, I’ve been here. This is my granny’s house. It’s familiar.”

Although each of “Black House Radio’s” YouTube sets, which typically start in the afternoon and go into the evening, are invite-only due to limited space at the house, Donte has recently started hosting public events so house aficionados can enjoy the experience offline.

Dj Nico, a sound selector visiting from Memphis, Tenn., grins between sips of Auntie’s Coffee cold brew after her set.

The first one, called “Church,” was held in June at the Pico Union Project, a nonprofit housed in a building that was once home to Sinai Temple (built in 1909). Like at the house functions, Donte displayed framed portraits around the space, which had church pews, flameless candles and a piano. (Video cameras were here too, but Donte doesn’t plan to release a video. You just had to be there.) He’s also got his eyes set on doing a Black house music festival in the near future.

When he reflects on the rise of “Black House Radio,” Donte says he thinks people connect with the show because of its authenticity.

“It’s not trying to be unique,” he says. “It’s not trying to be something different or new. I want it to feel familiar. I want you to be able to smell what you see on that TV. You know what that house smells like. You know what the carpet feels like. You know what the food is probably on the stove.”

Shaun Ross at Black House Radio.

(Justin Lawson)

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He adds, “I think my friends and I do a good job of making it a safe space for people to show up as themselves, and that’s just beautiful to watch.”

Around 8 p.m., when the last DJ finishes their set, one person shouts, “Keep the party going.” Donte hops back onto the decks and plays upbeat house music. Two guests vogue in the living room, and attendees socialize over more drinks. The cameras are no longer recording, but no one cares or even notices. They are in the company of family. They are at home.

On the occasion of its 100th birthday, you can find countless versions of the Caesar salad being consumed across the United States. They’re prepared tableside at fine dining restaurants, at the counters of fast casual salad chains and served up at McDonald’s with chicken cutlets and cherry tomatoes.

Chef Nathanial Zimet insists on using boquerones in the grilled Caesar salads at his New Orleans restaurant Boucherie. The marinated white Spanish anchovies, he says, are far superior to the salt-cured kind. Romaine spears, he adds, are immune to wilting over flame.

“It’s almost like it locks in the crunch of it,” he says, as the vivid green leaves curl and darken during a quick sear. He arranges the lettuce on a plate, drizzles it with dressing (lemon, garlic, Worcestershire and Tabasco) then generously scatters chunky basil croutons and craggy parmesan shavings on top.

“Is it cold? No. Is it hot? No. Is it cooked? No. Is it charred? Absolutely.”

Not many classic dishes can claim a specific birthday. But the Caesar salad was created for the very first time on July 4, 1924, in Tijuana, Mexico.

It is not a Mexican salad, says Jeffrey Pilcher. He’s a culinary historian who studies Mexican foodways.

“This is an Italian salad,” Pilcher says. “Caesar Cardini, the inventor of the salad, was an Italian immigrant and there were many Italian immigrants to Mexico.”

Tijuana, built into a bustling border town by a mélange of people, including Mexicans, the Chinese and North Americans, had no distinctive indigenous cuisine in 1924, Pilcher says. During Prohibition, tourists flocked to its spas, bullfights and nightclubs, where they could enjoy perfectly legal cocktails.

Cardini’s original restaurant, on Avenida Revolución in downtown Tijuana, is still open for business. The original Caesar salad remains on the menu. As the story goes, Caesar’s was overwhelmed by holiday partiers on that fateful July 4. They gobbled up everything but a few pantry staples: olive oil, parmesan, egg, Worcestershire sauce and lettuce. Someone, perhaps Cardini or possibly his brother, scraped the provisions together into a big wooden bowl. Caesar’s salad was a hit.

A vegan Caesar salad.

J.M. Hirsch/AP

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J.M. Hirsch/AP

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Over the years, the dish has morphed from what’s now called a “classic Caesar salad” (recipe here from our friends at PBS Food) into what writer Ellen Cushing has derided as “unchecked Caesar-salad fraud” in a very funny recent article in The Atlantic.

“In October,” she writes, “the food magazine Delicious posted a list of “Caesar” recipes that included variations with bacon, maple syrup, and celery; asparagus, fava beans, smoked trout, and dill; and tandoori prawns, prosciutto, kale chips, and mung-bean sprouts. The so-called Caesar at Kitchen Mouse Cafe, in Los Angeles, includes “pickled carrot, radish & coriander seeds, garlicky croutons, crispy oyster mushrooms, lemon dressing.”

But Nathanial Zimet believes the Caesar salad endures precisely because of these liberties, not in spite of them. The Boucherie chef thinks the salad can be a showcase for innovation while remaining rooted in resourcefulness and kitchen creativity. It is, he says, a salad for today. Maybe even for always.

Edited for radio and the web by Jennifer Vanasco.