The Stars and StripesAs Seen by Fashion Designers

What’s more American than apple pie? Past triumphs. Boasting 13 red and white stripes and 50 stars on a blue base, the United States flag is a powerful symbol, used to express patriotism and sometimes protest.

Fashion designers have used it in both of these ways. The flag has long been a part of the design vocabulary of all-American designers like Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, both proponents of the sleek Ivy League look. When Belgian designer Raf Simons joined Calvin Klein, he looked at Americana with an outside eye, and incorporated traditional quilt patterns and Andy Warhol’s work in his collection, one of which featured a skirt made of the American flag. Pyer Mosss Kerby Jean-Raymond uses his collection as a platform to examine the Black experience in the United States. Her fall 2021 couture collection includes a look that draws on the red, black, and green African-American flag designed by artist David Hammons.

With In American: A Lexicon of Fashion, the first two-part exhibition taking place at the Costume Institute in 2021 and 2022 looks back at the ways designers from around the world fly the US flag in style.