Flags are everywhere, even in our wardrobes. Why are these brightly coloured rectangles of cloth so appealing?  Are they fetishes, objects of veneration, alluring stereotypes of identity or disquieting emblems of power? And what part do they play in the omnivorous imagery of fashion and in the anarchic creative processes of style?
WIG WAG. The Falgs of Fashion sets out to sample the dense flow of images and allusions - to sport, ethnic identity, patriotism or sheer nostalgia - prompted by the theme of the flags and their relations with fashion. It detaches them from their immediate association with the idea of nation and follows them in their visual metamorphoses at the hands of historic figures like Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior and Emilio Pucci; stylists and labels like Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Vivienne Westwood, Franco Moschino, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Antonio Marras, Alexander McQueen and Viktor & Rolf; streetstyle brands like Mambo, Vans, Eastpak, Gsus, Nigo, Stussy and Ipath. Thus irony and identity underpin the multiple forms of appropriation of the American, British and Italian flags. Fashion also finds room for the Brazilian, Jamaican and Japanese colours, as well as for red flags, rainbow flags and the flags of those who have no country.
The book sifts through this explosion of coloured insigna to uncover the creative processes of a fashion closely linked with the cinema, art, design and music.

Alessandra Vaccari teaches at the Univesities of Bologna (Rimini campus) and Venice (Treviso campus). She carries out research into fashion, design and their relations with contemporary visual culture. She has published essays on italian fashion in the yaers of Fascism and the period following the second World War.

Mode is a project by Fondazione Pitti Discovery directed by Maria Luisa Frisa and devoted to the ideas and figures of fashion.