[1] "The Emperor's New Clothes" was first published with "The Little Mermaid" in Copenhagen, Denmark, by C. A. Reitzel, on 7 April 1837, as the third and final installment of Andersen's Fairy Tales Told for Children.

The tale has been adapted to various media, and the story's title, the phrase "the Emperor has no clothes", and variations thereof have been adopted for use in numerous other works and as idioms.

The tale concerns an emperor who has an obsession with fancy new clothes, and spends lavishly on them, at the expense of state matters.

The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all.

[4][5] There is also an Indian version of the story, which appears in the Līlāvatīsāra by Jinaratna (1283), a summary of a now-lost anthology of fables, the Nirvāṇalīlāvatī by Jineśvara (1052).

The dishonest merchant Dhana from Hastināpura swindles the king of Śrāvastī by offering to weave a supernatural garment that cannot be seen or touched by any person of illegitimate birth.

The king is then paraded about his city to show off the garment; when the common folk ask him if he has become a naked ascetic, he realizes the deception, but the swindler has already fled.

[7] Robbins argues that Andersen's tale "quite clearly rehearses four contemporary controversies: the institution of a meritocratic civil service, the valuation of labor, the expansion of democratic power, and the appraisal of art".

In 1961, Croatian feature film The Emperor's New Clothes directed by Ante Babaja, writer Božidar Violić (see IMDb).

[13] In 1972, Rankin/Bass Productions adapted the tale as the first and only musical episode of ABC series The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye, featuring Danny Kaye (who, 20 years earlier, had portrayed Hans Christian Andersen in the musical of the same name), Cyril Ritchard, Imogene Coca, Allen Swift, and Bob McFadden.

In the special, Bolaños is the helper of an arts and crafts worker who pretends to have a fantastic fabric that only smart people can see, using it to trick the king.

[citation needed] As an idiom, use of the story's title refers to something widely accepted as true or professed as being praiseworthy, due to an unwillingness of the general population to criticize it or be seen as going against popular opinion.

Simply put, collective illusions arise when individuals conform to a group's false beliefs, often out of social pressure.