Professor J
Jul 4, 2024
Are shoemakers exploiting the flag and the Fourth of July for profit?
When Mia DeCarpio got together with friends for the All American Bar Crawl — an annual Fourth of July themed event that takes place in the DuPont Circle area of Washington, D.C. – they all decided to dress in patriotic colors.
For DeCarpio, 25, that meant sporting a pair of white, high-top Chuck Taylor sneakers by Converse, a red crop top “No Bra Club” shirt, and a pair of tattered blue jean shorts that resemble the American flag.
Her friend, Jordan Willett – named so because his dad is a “huge MJ fan” – wore a pair of red, black and white Air Jordan 1 low-tops. Her other friend, Jordan Wheeler – named so for the Jordan of the Bible, not the basketball guy – wore a pair of white Nike Air Max SYSTMs with red accents.
Is it an act of patriotism to adorn oneself with clothes and kicks emblazoned with the American flag and classic symbols of Americana? Or does the commercializing and accessorizing of the flag -- both of which are discouraged by the U.S. Flag Code -- take away from the reverence with which Americans are supposed to regard the nation’s colors?
There is no shortage of examples to consider. A pair of Chuck Taylor flag shoes currently go for about $80 on StockX.
The company that makes Crocs invites consumers to think about “stocking up” on American flag crocs for the nation’s “most prideful holidays, including Independence Day, Veterans Day and Memorial Day.”
Earlier this year at Sneaker Con in America’s birthplace – Philadelphia – Donald Trump released a pair of golden high-top sneakers that feature the Stars & Stripes to boost his presidential comeback bid.
Olympic history is rife with examples of the red, white and blue being used to promote sneakers and even secret sneaker wars.
On July 1, for example, Nike released Kevin Durant’s 17th signature shoe – the KD 17 "USA" – in anticipation of the Summer Olympics in Paris. One writer noted how the new KD shoe “channels the U.S. flag.” And, as revealed in the 2020 Netflix docuseries “The Last Dance,” Michael Jordan draped an American flag over his uniform during the awards ceremony at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona to hide the logo of Nike rival Reebok, which supplied the uniforms for the U.S. teams.
The U.S. Flag Code, which lays out the protocol and etiquette for how the American flag should be displayed and handled, seems to frown on the use of the flag for purposes of fashion. Specifically, the code states the flag should “never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.”
It also states: “No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.”
When asked for their opinion about flag-themed apparel and sneakers, Mia DeCarpio and her companions said it comes down to camaraderie, looking chic and cool.
“I would say it’s all about intention,” DeCarpio told Sneaker Theory. “As long as you don’t touch the flag on the ground, but if it’s clothing and shoes, shoes gotta go on the ground.”
And therein lies a problem. As just about any American child who grew up in the home of a veteran can probably tell you, the American flag is never supposed to touch the ground. If it does, many of us were taught, it has to be burned.
Those tenets are derived from the part of the U.S. Flag Code that states the flag should “never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.” Once a flag is no longer fit to display, the code states, it should be “destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.”
The code also prohibits embroidering the flag on things that would be easily torn or soiled, such as handkerchiefs, napkins or seat cushions. In other words, people shouldn’t be putting the Stars & Stripes in their nostrils or underneath their butts.
But what about on our feet?
Flag-themed footwear
The code states that the flag should not be “printed or otherwise impressed” on “anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.” While sneakers would seem to fall into that category, Ted Kaye, a spokesperson for the North American Vexillological Association, an organization of flag experts and enthusiasts, wasn’t willing to go that far. Vexillology is the study of flags and flag customs.
“As I understand it, the U.S. Flag Code deals with the flag itself, not depictions of the flag,” Kaye told Sneaker Theory. Thus, Kaye says, placing an image of the flag on sneakers would not violate the code.
“While some might argue that an embroidered patch is a ‘flag,’ it's clearly not — it's only one-sided and is not meant to ‘fly,’” Kaye says. “So those uses would be OK.”
Beyond the manner in which the flag should and shouldn’t be displayed, the code also states that the flag should “never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.” So where does this leave patriotic sneakers, which represent a form of advertising all unto themselves?
What follows are three recent or contemporary examples that illustrate the complexities and contradictions that surround flag-themed sneakers presented to the public under the pretense of being patriotic.
Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July
Let’s start with a Fourth of July-themed shoe that Nike pulled just before the Fourth of July in 2019. The yankee shoe got yanked due concerns that placing the Betsy Ross-designed flag on the kicks could be seen as offensive.
Ironically, Nike didn’t pull the shoes because anyone thought the shoes were disrespectful to America’s OG flag. Rather, the company pulled the shoe after ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick – who parlayed his status as an outcast for taking a knee during the national anthem into a multi million deal with Nike – said he felt the use of the Betsy Ross flag was offensive because it represented an era of slavery.
While Kaepernick has frequently lamented the horrors of slavery from the days of old, as he did in a 2021 Netflix drama that compared the NFL draft system to slavery in the antebellum South, Kaepernick has been criticized for remaining silent on Nike’s ties to suspected slave labor.
Never Surrender Hightop Sneaker
Launched amid boos by America’s 45th former commander-in-chief at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia in February 2024, the collar of these $399 garish golden high-tops feature a pared down version of the Stars & Stripes.
While it is unclear where exactly the shoes were manufactured, menswear expert Derek Guy wrote that based on the soles of the shoes, he would “assume somewhere in a low-cost Asian country” – most likely China. National politics writer Joe Perticone wrote that the shoes “appear to be cheap wholesale shoes with some shiny branding stitched on the sides.”
If Trump’s kicks were made in China, it would be consistent with his practice of using Chinese steel for his construction projects, but preaching the virtue of “buy American” to the rest of us.
Adidas Kobe Two USA Flag Sneakers
These slip-on sneakers made their debut on the late, great Kobe Bryant’s feet on Oct. 30, 2001 – just seven weeks after 9/11.
Kobe wanted to honor the victims of the terrorist attack.
Peter Moore, former creative director at Nike and Adidas in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, wanted to “make it look like there was an American flag draped over it,” Dan Fulton, the original developer on The Kobe Two, told Boardroom.
“Not some kind of stylized stars and stripes, but to make it look like a sublimation print of a flag on top of that material,” the Boardroom quotes Fulton as saying.
Adidas never made these 9/11 remembrance shoes for mass production, though, having only put out 30 pairs.
“It was always just a one-off deal,” Fulton told Boardroom.
One pair of these sneakers, however, stand out from the rest. They are a pair of game-worn sneakers that Kobe gifted to LeBron James.
The shoes that connect these two basketball greats sold for $156,000 at an auction in March 2024. But we haven’t seen the last of them.
Rally, the fractional investment app company that purchased the shoes, is offering them to 'investors' for $10 a share.
It seems the Kobe flag sneakers are being treated as less of a sneaker and more like a patriotic work of art.
Laura Shaughnessy, a journalism student at the University of Maryland, contributed to this report.