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Denimist sells one for $365.
Andrea Edelman Kay
Lewis has seen interest grow in a TikTok Shop dupe that costs $11.
Creators startedcomparingtheir virtues; over Christmas, scores of themunboxedthe ones theyd been gifted.
Whats trending as nostalgia-tinged Americana on TikTok inspires less enthusiastic engagement in deep-blue enclaves.
Joe Biden, wearing a flag pin.
To her, the flag was an emblem claimed by the union-affiliated working class.
She has seen her own family register the shift.
When she was a kid, everyone dressed up in American flag tees for July Fourth, she says.
Halle Berre in a Catherine Maladrinoflag shirtdress.
I would say 85% of the people in my family would not wear one now.
As with any style that falls out of favor, its not the flag that has changed.
Its the connotation that has.
Nikki Haley in an American flag sweater.
That unease has reverberations.
The homage is more on-target than its wearers realize.
Who better to market the flag than a first-generation master of reinvention?
Debbie Harry in a tattered flag gown for the Met Gala.
No one wearing an oversized Marc Jacobs camo print worries that their jacket betrays a hawkish foreign-policy agenda.
Theres something about an oversized American flag knit that feels old money.
Especially for a cohort that hasnt lived through as many political cycles as its elders have.
The vast majority of TikTokers who share these sweaters are Gen Z, Lewis says.
I havent seen a single millennial TikToker share it or wear it.
Millennials have just been through more.
They know that things are more fraught.
I dont think Gen Z is wildly conservative.
I think theyre sort of unaware of what the American flag represents.
Its not just cute Brandy Melville.
Its more than that.
The American flag wasnt always the aesthetic domain of conservatives.
It was semi-sheer, but the pattern was no subtle nod.
The stripes were several inches wide.
The stars were the size of silver dollars.
Soon after, Kelly Ripa wore it.
Then Meryl Streep did.
The dress spoke to a conviction:Thisis the kind of country we can be.
That just wouldnt fly now, Sherman says.
A designer touting feminist and progressive ideals would never make that.
Youre not going to wrap yourself in the flag if you believe America is careening off the edge.
But there is a subversive way to wear the flag.
In 2019, the designerTelfar Clemenswelcomed a thousand people to his Fashion Week presentation.
The entrance for all of them was a hole ripped in the middle of a giant American flag.
Twice now, the label Vaquera has shown star-spangled dresses.
In 2017 it produced a saturated, triumphant number with an endless train.
The gown had been designed before Donald Trumps election and shown in defiance after it.
In 2022 its collection featured another flag dress.
This one was ripped and faded but unmistakable.
It was no pristine, preppy sweater, but it sent a message all the same.
They coopted it, Sherman says.
After November, an American flag print might feel even more verboten than it does now.
Or it could take on an iconoclastic kind of significance.
Young people can make it their own, Sherman says.
Theres hope for the old girl yet.
