Betsy Ross might have been a little surprised. What happened to her flag? On Sunday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the White House lawn for the Freedom 250 celebration, marking both Flag Day and President Trump’s 80th birthday, turned it into a costume.
If the event itself was a metaphor for how a once-dismissed subculture had made its way from the edges into the symbolic heart of the country, and the cage fight a reflection of how President Trump views politics — a no-holds-barred brawl to the finish, when brute force determines the winner and the winner takes all — the outfits worn by the fighters and the Octagon Girls who supported them told their own story.
It was a drama about a world where masculine energy is bare-chested push-ups and feminine energy is push-up bras. A world where red meat is consumed by red-blooded guys who drive Ram trucks (Ram was a sponsor) and hair spray is heaven sent. And where wearing those distinctions on your sleeve is a Pledge of Allegiance. Imagine a pageant of gender cosplay filtered through the aesthetic of DC Comics and Alberto Vargas, and produced by the ghost of Spirit Halloween, and you’ll get the idea.
It began with the made-for-the-moment garments of the fighters themselves, who, no matter what their actual nationality, were required to abandon their usual colors for the day in a show of unity. There were, for example, no red-and-gold toreador shorts for Ilia Topuria, referring to his nickname “El Matador.” No black “full violence” shorts with grayed-out stars for Justin Gaethje; no leopard print for Alex Pereira.
Instead, spandex, shorts and warm-up suits in swirling stripes of red, white and blue, speckled with stars like an abstract flag waving in the wind beneath all the bare, muscled torsos of the competitors, came courtesy of Venum, the official U.F.C. outfitter (though the poison-green logo of the sponsor Monster Energy did slightly ruin the effect). Some fighters, like Steve Garcia, even emerged from the White House wearing what seemed to be actual flags over their shoulders like capes.
And it was hammered home by the finery of the Octagon Girls Chrissy Blair and Red Dela Cruz, who, rather than the usual sports-bra tops and hot pants, wore different stars-and-stripes looks in varying combinations of sequins, velvet and brocade to go with almost every fight. It was as if, rather than pulling down her curtains to make her D.I.Y. gown, Scarlett O’Hara had pulled down a flag.
The women’s looks were created by Marina Toybina, a costume designer who has won seven Emmy Awards, including for the reality shows “So You Think You Can Dance” and “The Masked Singer” (the reality TV program in which famous people perform songs while wearing elaborate, surreal costumes to hide their identities).
Ms. Toybina explained in the one interview she gave before the Freedom 250 event, to the men’s magazine Maxim, that the goal was “a fresh interpretation of American glamour” — though the ingredients that went into the designs seemed less fresh than familiar.
Take the corsetry and bustles of the Gilded Age; add micro miniskirts, prom dresses, Miss America sashes, high-heeled bootees and Wonder Woman’s singlet; put in a blender and mix. The result offered a picture of the flip side of the tradwife. Call it the tradbabe.
Some online commentators called the looks tacky and compared them to the costumes from “The Boys.” Others fretted that the use of such clear flag references violated the United States Flag Code, the federal guidelines for the display of the American flag. Those provisions state that “the flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery” and that “no part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.” Arguably, the outfits themselves were “flag-inspired,” rather than actual repurposed flags — and the code is more of a suggestion than an actual enforceable law.
Besides, flag etiquette was not the point. Nor was good or bad taste. The connection between patriotism and Trump administration values was.
The obvious fashion subtext was as striking as the report that the Pentagon’s new bodily waist-to-height ratio (the number found by dividing the circumference of one’s waist by their height) for all military personnel had to be met by the military attendees. No unsightly flesh would suggest that the fighting force was in less than fighting shape as the military viewers took their seats in their (required) dress uniforms.
And it was even more notable than the oddly short tie worn by Joe Rogan as he interviewed the winners of each bout, the black leather Dolce & Gabbana jacket Melania Trump wore as she sat next to her husband in the front row or the “Donald Trump for Prime Minister” baseball cap worn by the British heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury.
The president has long presented himself as a simulacrum of the flag — blue suit, white shirt, red tie — the better to offer a picture in which he and the nation’s symbol are indistinguishable. Increasingly his supporters in the administration have followed suit. This event took that dress code and applied the style vernacular of pop culture kitsch. It may have been camp, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t intended for posterity.
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