Fashion Friday: Raising your, umm, wrap high on the Fourth of July

30 Jun Fashion Friday: Raising your, umm, wrap high on the Fourth of July

For this installment of Telluride Inside… and Out's Fashion Friday, we are talking about the American Flag, which twins with patriotism and the upcoming Fourth of July, but with fashion? Stay tuned.

We begin with a short history. Legend has it that the first American flag was made a Philadelphia seamstress acquainted with George Washington, leader of the Continental Army, and other influential Philadelphians. In May 1776, so the story goes, General Washington and two representatives from the Continental Congress visited Betsy Ross at her upholstery shop with a rough design of the flag. Although Washington initially favored using a star with six points, Ross advocated for a five-pointed star, which could be cut with just one quick snip of the scissors. The gentlemen were won over. The first official national flag, also known as the Stars and Stripes, was approved by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.

Since then and throughout our history, the American flag has been venerated or vilified depending upon which way the political winds were blowing.

In 1955, Pop artist Jasper Johns created the first of a number of iconic art works based on the flag, rendering the Stars & Stripes in wax encaustic paint, on newspaper collage, in oil on canvas, in bronze, pencil, lithography and Sculptmetal as the climax of the stock of public symbols that have come to stand for America – but never in cashmere.

For that medium, we now turn to the subject at hand: Me & Kashmir.

Me & Kashmir creates a luscious 100 percent cashmere wrap  with two different designs of the American flag, one all blue flag and the other, a washed out, worn out, Red, White and Blue version, perhaps a comment on the state of our country, perhaps just a great design.

"The bonus is that these scarves work great as a cover up on Independence Day, but you can wear them throughout the year since they aren't your typical Betsy Ross red, white and blue," explained Kristin Holbrook of Two Skirts.

In addition to Me & Kashmir's flags, the company offers other designs imprinted on cashmere, including a black-and-white New York cityscape, all at Two Skirts, 127 West Colorado Avenue.