A progressive fashion label called Selkie just released a patriotic capsule collection featuring red-and-white striped skirts and starry-blue corsets — and its own fanbase immediately lost its collective mind, declaring the American flag a symbol of fascism. Imagine building a brand on inclusivity and then watching your customers have a nervous breakdown because you put stars and stripes on a dress.
The horror. The absolute horror of seeing Old Glory on a petticoat.
Selkie, which debuted in 2018 and sells through retailers like Revolve, Anthropologie, Free People, and Bloomingdale's, is about as progressive as fashion brands get. They offer sizing from XXS to 6X. They're woman-owned. They're LGBT-friendly. Their founder, Kimberley Gordon — a UK-born designer who previously co-founded WILDFOX — lives in Santa Barbara, California. This isn't exactly a company run out of a Trump rally tent.
But none of that mattered. Gordon dropped the collection during Pride Month, and her customers treated it like she'd personally endorsed a border wall.
"If I saw someone wearing this collection, I would think them an unsafe," one Instagram commenter wrote, apparently unable to finish the thought before passing out from patriotic exposure. Another declared, "If someone wears any of this I would immediately assume they're MAGA." A self-described trauma therapist chimed in with, "Could have been a Pride collection. Instead it's… this," adding that "releasing literally nothing would have been better."
Releasing nothing would have been better than the American flag. Let that sink in.
One former fan wailed, "WTF. Just bought my first Selkie dress last month now I won't EVER" — presumably purchase another, though she may still be sobbing into her previous Selkie acquisition. Plus-size model Tess Holliday weighed in with, "As a white woman, the idea that we get to decide this symbol" — because apparently the flag needs a permission slip now.
Gordon, to her credit, tried to explain herself. "It was the symbol of the world I was moving to from the UK," she said about why she used the flag. She framed the collection as being "about the pressure to conform under public scrutiny." The brand's original messaging had stated, "America has been in the background of our lives and stories… At a time when women's rights are threatened."
So she tried to reclaim the flag for the left. And the left told her to take it back.
Gordon's damage control included pledging a minimum of $40,000 in net profits to charities — specifically the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and UN Women. Because nothing says "I'm sorry for showing you the flag" like donating to immigrant advocacy groups.
And here's the kicker: the petticoat in question costs $799. So we're talking about people who can afford an $800 skirt being emotionally devastated by a flag pattern. These aren't struggling Americans worried about grocery prices. These are people with enough disposable income to buy a single article of clothing that costs more than most families' monthly car payment — and they still can't handle the sight of the country that made their cushy lifestyle possible.
This is what the modern left has become. The American flag — not a Confederate flag, not a political slogan, not a campaign logo — the actual flag of the United States of America is now considered dangerous by people who live here, shop here, and presumably enjoy the freedoms that flag represents.
We didn't need more proof that progressivism has eaten itself alive, but Selkie served it up on a star-spangled platter anyway.