America Has the Best Merch
One core childhood memory that burns bright decades later is of a particular pair of pants that my uncle would trot out every July 4. They were a loose billowy number, with white stars on blue running down one leg, and red and white stripes on the other. Call it the side effect of being raised in a small, reasonably patriotic town in Nevada (population: approx. 15,000) or simply just the reality of being American, but seeing the flag plastered onto pants, shirts, shoes, hats, socks, underwear, and any other article of clothing was as normal to me as a slice of apple pie and singing the National Anthem at school every morning.
America’s famous stars and stripes are as instantly recognizable as any corporate logo, so it’s fitting that this national symbol has been plastered onto clothing for nearly as long as America has been around — take, for instance, Uncle Sam (or U.S., for short), the political cartoon character turned nationalist icon decked out in head-to-toe flag swag since 1852. If America were a fashion house, he would undoubtedly be the muse.
Since the modern 50-star iteration was first officially flown on July 4, 1960 (following the statehood of Hawaii and Alaska one year earlier), the flag has found its way into fashion. And while, sure, it’s technically illegal — the U.S. Flag Code states that "no part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform” — that hasn’t stopped designers from putting their spin on the fabled design scheme.
For a cohort of quintessentially American brands, the patriotism of the flag motif has been stitched into their DNA.
The mass-market retailer Old Navy has sold its signature Flag Tee range annually around the Fourth of July since 1994, and there may be nothing more American than Ralph Lauren, both the brand and the man: The Iconic Flag Sweater, a signature item first released in the 1990s and stitched with the OG 13-star pattern and an “RL” signature, “embodies Mr. Lauren’s long-standing love of American style,” according to the product page.
Lauren himself, the child of immigrants, was awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal by the Smithsonian in 2014 for his work to preserve the flag. As he wrote in a message for the ceremony: “I am a product of the American dream, and the flag is its symbol.”
The earnestness with which some brands handle the American flag is offset by a sharper edge in the streetwear space.
Supreme’s founder, James Jebbia, has returned to the symbol again and again. The brand’s Spring/Summer 2026 season featured flag-print pieces ranging from a Quilted Hooded Work Jacket to Double Knee Painter Pants, which was itself a reference to Supreme’s iconic 2006 collab with the Harlem rap group Dipset, whose “Dipset Anthem” music video featured Juelz Santana in an all-over flag fit.
While Supreme has filtered this nationalist item through the lens of skate and hip-hop culture, Denim Tears founder Tremaine Emory has become one of America’s most important working designers. As he told Highsnobiety earlier this year: “Denim Tears is a brand about America, constantly putting things through my view of America, my view of Black culture, and the way Black culture has helped build America from the very beginning. Just like many other cultures have.”
While Emory’s signature motif is the cotton wreath, framed as a talisman for what America was built on, and his recent Spring/Summer 2026 “Libertas” collection evoked the imagery of the Statue of Liberty and broken chains, he’s also put his spin on the actual American flag.
In 2020, he unveiled a special Black History Month edition of the classic Converse Chuck Taylor with a red, black, and green colorway — a reference to both the Black nationalist Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African flag and artist David Hammons’ African-American Flag — which apparently caused tensions at both Converse and its parent company, Nike. “They had a problem with me using the flag in general,” he told Highsnobiety at the time. “It's based on David Hammons' flag and Marcus Garvey's flag. To all the people of color that have suffered since the beginning, the dawn of this nation.”
Though the flag carries centuries of historic baggage, it has also acted as an amorphous symbol, allowing designers to fill in their own definition of what it means to be American. And really, is there anything more quintessentially American than taking the flag, picking apart its shame and pride, and then selling it as technically contraband merch?
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