Hello, Open Thread. Happy September. And to the grandparents out there, happy Grandparents’ Day. Next week is the start of New York Fashion Week, which is the start of the whole fashion month. It’s going to be a big one, especially in Paris and Milan, with more than a dozen designers making their debuts at the top of major brands. Before all that, however, two major changes have already occurred.
Not surprisingly, the accolades have been pouring in since Mr. Armani’s death. He was a major fashion figure in both design and business, transforming not just all of our wardrobes but the industry as well. Some examples: Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMH, in a statement: “He created a unique style, combining light and shadow, that he developed into a large and successful entrepreneurial journey and extended Italian elegance to a global scale.” Claudia Cardinale, the actress, in an email to me: “Meeting Giorgio was a crucial moment in my life. It marked my transition to becoming a new woman, independent and free.” Russell Crowe, on X: “1997 at the Cannes film festival, after my bag was lost in transit, LA Confidential producer Arnon Milchan sent me to the Armani store with a credit card to get a suit for the premiere. That began a love affair with Armani suits that continues to this day.” He continued, “So many significant moments in my life, awards, wedding, Wimbledon … all in Armani.” We’ll miss him. Finally, in a third biggish piece of fashion news, Proenza Schouler, a beloved New York brand whose founders and designers, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, departed earlier this year for Loewe and the big leagues, announced its new creative director. Enter Rachel Scott, the founder and designer of Diotima, a New York label with a lot of promise but not yet much of a global profile. Indeed, Ms. Scott, who made her name by combining the craft of her Jamaican heritage with the chic of the city, won the emerging designer award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2023 and the award for designer of the year in 2024 — even before she had a full-fledged fashion show. That exciting event will take place at New York Fashion Week, along with a preview presentation of her Proenza vision. What makes her appointment even more significant, however, is that Ms. Scott is one of the few women to be handed the reins of even a midsize brand — and the rare person of color out of the more than 20 designers who snagged new jobs this year. Think about that. Then catch up with Gene Pressman, the former impresario of Barneys, who has a juicy memoir of the store out this week; check in with Luke Newton, a.k.a. Colin Bridgerton, who will be embodying Alexander McQueen in a new Off Broadway show; and find out why sewing is cool again. And have a good weekend. Drink your green juice. We are all going to need out stamina.
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Your Style Questions, AnsweredEvery week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or X. Questions are edited and condensed.
The U.S. flag code sets guidelines for proper and respectful display of the flag. Among the guidelines is that it should not be used as an article of clothing. So is it not wrong for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to wear flag-themed accessories? — Lee, Attleboro, Ma.There is no question that the flag is the fashion muse of the current administration. Its color scheme has become the de facto everyday uniform of the president (blue suit, white shirt, red tie), along with many members of the cabinet as well as Republicans in Congress, but, as you point out, no one has taken it to Mr. Hegseth’s extreme. During his confirmation hearing, for example, Mr. Hegseth wore flag socks, a flag belt buckle and a flag pocket handkerchief. Before that, he wore a suit with a flag lining when he visited Congress. In an interview with the conservative political commentator Benny Johnson, he said that he abided by the “three-flag rule," a self-created edict to wear at least three flag items a day. This makes a certain amount of sense in the context of the Trump administration, where performance and costume are crucial parts of the package. However, you are correct in noting that the U.S. flag code theoretically prohibits the wearing of the flag, with the exception of a flag pin over the heart. According to Section 8(d) of the code, “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding or drapery.” Subsection (i) is even more specific: “It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs.” And (j) states, “No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.” That might suggest that the newly christened secretary of war should at the very least eschew his pocket hankies. The idea of blowing one’s nose in the flag is not a great look and probably not the image he intends. When asked, Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, dismissed the question and emailed, in part: “If loving one’s country enough to represent it head to toe is a crime, then consider Secretary Hegseth guilty. He is a patriot who reveres this country and our flag.” More pertinently, according to Susan Scafidi, the founder of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, “a series of Supreme Court cases have established that First Amendment free-speech protections outweigh laws that attempt to prohibit desecration of the flag, including by wearing it.” This is also true, she said in an email, for the use of the flag in retail fashion, “whether Ralph Lauren’s classic sweaters” — the ones worn by the U.S. Olympic team — “or Willy Chavarria’s critical ‘Falling Stars’ version: upside down, a recognized distress symbol, with the stars falling out.” In other words, it may seem flippant and frivolous to wear the flag as a souvenir tee, but the issue is one of morality and semiology, not legality. And whether the look is meant, or received, as a gesture of substantive patriotism — a display of loyalty, which is how Mr. Hegseth and much of the current administration seem to see it — or a way of reducing the country to the superficial, and easily abandoned, level of decoration, the fact that the confusion exists at all is a freedom worth celebrating. |
