History of the Pride Flag (Dressed Classic)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Dressed: The History of Fashion
Episode: History of the Pride Flag (Dressed Classic)
Date: June 19, 2026
Hosts: April Callahan & Cassidy Zachary

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Episode Overview

This Pride Month episode of Dressed: The History of Fashion dives deep into the social and cultural history of the iconic Pride flag. The hosts, April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, celebrate the LGBTQ movement’s most recognizable symbol by examining its creation, the people behind it, and its evolving role within and beyond the LGBTQ community. Drawing from new primary sources and their own research, the episode tells the vibrant story of how a piece of material culture became emblematic of liberation, unity, and inclusion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction & Personal Context

• Cassidy shares her own identity as a member of the LGBTQ community for the first time on-air ([02:33]):

  “Please just know, dress listeners, I'm here, I'm queer.” – Cassidy Zachary ([02:33])

• The episode is prompted by a listener’s question on the "wearing of flags" and Cassidy’s Target experience seeing Pride merchandise ([03:10]).

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2. Early Examples of Wearing Flags in Fashion

• Designers like Elsa Schiaparelli (1940) and Elizabeth Hawes incorporated flag motifs into high fashion, using existing flags or flag imagery, especially during WWII when silk was rationed ([03:10]-[04:03]).

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3. The Birth of the Pride Flag

• The Pride flag was created for San Francisco’s 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade.
• Trio of creators: Gilbert Baker (designer and activist), James McNamara (FIT alum), and Fairy Argyll Rainbow ([05:14]).
• Context: The pink triangle, a previous symbol from WWII, was "a symbol for the gay movement, but it represented a dark chapter in the history of same sex rights" ([06:46]).

  “We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love.” – Gilbert Baker, quoted by Cassidy ([06:46])

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4. Symbolism & Inspiration

• Baker drew inspiration for the flag from the American flag, the French Revolution tricolor, and the rainbow as an ancient symbol of hope ([07:35]):

  “A gay nation should have a flag, too, to proclaim its own idea of power.” – Gilbert Baker, quoted by Cassidy ([06:46]) “The rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope.” – Baker, quoted by April ([07:35])

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5. Original Design & Meaning

• The original flag had eight colors, each with specific meaning ([08:16]):
  • Pink: Sex
  • Red: Life
  • Orange: Healing
  • Yellow: Sun
  • Green: Nature
  • Turquoise: Magic
  • Blue: Serenity
  • Purple: Spirit

  “Every color has a meaning, just like the American flag. Symbolism all the way.” – Baker, quoted by Cassidy ([08:16])

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6. Labor and Process of Creation

• Construction was a massive "labor of love" ([12:04]):
  • 30ft x 60ft flags; 1,000 yards of muslin dyed with natural dyes by Fairy Argyll Rainbow ([12:04]-[12:34]).

    “Fairy insisted that the team use natural dyes... required the fabric to sit in the dye bath for a week.” – April ([12:21])

  • Dyeing and rinsing was done without hot water; fabric moved via ladders and laundromats; involved many community volunteers ([13:05]-[13:43]).
  • Flags required reinforcement due to their size; one had a tie-dye version of American flag stars ([14:25]-[14:48]).

    “When Baker learned of the cost of the damage done... he remarked, ‘send the bill to the National Endowment of the Arts.’” – Cassidy ([14:48])

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7. Public Debut & Immediate Impact

• First flown at the 1978 parade; the sight of the flags was met with "wild" enthusiasm ([14:48]-[15:29]).
  • Immediate high demand for more rainbow flags.

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8. Evolution from Eight to Six Stripes

• Due to cost and availability, the flag’s colors were reduced to six for mass production ([15:29]):
  • Pink and turquoise were removed.
  • Paramount Flag Company suggested nylon for better durability ([15:29]-[15:54]).
  • 400 flags produced for the 1979 parade.

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9. Variations & Debate over Inclusion

• As the flag gained worldwide recognition, calls emerged to adapt and expand its design for greater inclusivity ([16:17]):
  • Black and brown stripes for Black and Latinx representation.
  • Pale blue and pink stripes for the trans community.
  • Daniel Quasar’s "Progress Pride" flag added a chevron with new colors ([16:39]).

    “The six stripe LGBTQ flag should be separated from the newer stripes because of their difference in meaning, as well as to shift focus and emph to what is important in our current community climate.” – Daniel Quasar, quoted by Cassidy ([16:39])

  • Discussion about whether new versions dilute or expand Baker’s legacy of unity ([17:20]).

    “If new design provocations like this flag can help important conversations happen, that it is a demonstration of the continuing power of the discipline of design to effect change. More power to that.” – Michelle Miller Fisher of MoMA, quoted by April ([17:20])

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10. The Flag as a Living Symbol

• The episode closes emphasizing the flag's ongoing evolution and its meaning as a symbol for liberation, unity, and dialogue within the LGBTQ community and beyond ([17:52]-[18:21]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Please just know, dress listeners, I'm here, I'm queer.” – Cassidy Zachary ([02:33])
• “A gay nation should have a flag, too, to proclaim its own idea of power.” – Gilbert Baker, via Cassidy ([06:46])
• “The rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope.” – Gilbert Baker, via April ([07:35])
• “Every color has a meaning, just like the American flag. Symbolism all the way.” – Baker ([08:16])
• “Fairy insisted that the team use natural dyes... required the fabric to sit in the dye bath for a week.” – April ([12:21])
• “Send the bill to the National Endowment of the Arts.” – Baker ([14:48])
• “If new design provocations like this flag can help important conversations happen, that it is a demonstration of the continuing power of the discipline of design to effect change. More power to that.” – Michelle Miller Fisher, MoMA ([17:20])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:58] – Introduction to Pride Month and the Pride flag focus
• [03:10] – Listener’s fashion history question launches the subject
• [05:14] – The creation team: Baker, McNamara, Fairy Argyll Rainbow
• [06:46] – Baker’s rationale: moving from the pink triangle to a symbol of celebration
• [07:35] – Symbolism of the rainbow and inspirations for the flag’s design
• [08:16] – Breakdown of the original eight colors and their meanings
• [11:21] – The massive labor behind constructing the first flags
• [15:29] – Transition from eight- to six-color flags and the role of Paramount Flag Company
• [16:39] – Modern adaptations: the Progress Pride flag and ongoing debates
• [17:52] – The flag’s legacy and closing reflections

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Conclusion

This episode provides an insightful, detailed history of the Pride flag’s creation, its powerful symbolism, and its continuing evolution within the LGBTQ community. The hosts blend fashion history with personal and community context, offering a celebratory and thoughtful examination of how a flag became a global symbol for love, hope, and progress.

Transcript

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[April Callahan]

Edu Sci Dress the History of Fashion is a production of iHeartRadio. Over 7 billion people in the world. We all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast where we explore the who, what, when of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your hosts,

[April Callahan]

April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary. Dress listeners. It's officially June, and you know what that means. It's Pride Month.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yay.

[April Callahan]

And to celebrate, we are getting, quote unquote, dressed with an episode from the archives on the history of one of the most ubiquitous and meaningful items of material culture associated with the LGBTQ movement and communities historically and today. And that, of course, is the Pride. So please enjoy this episode, dress listeners.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And just a side note here before we get into the episode, I don't think I've ever actually talked about this on the show explicitly, Cass, because you and I don't so much talk about our personal lives, but I am actually part of the LGBTQ community. So please just know, dress listeners, I'm here, I'm queer. And we hope that you enjoy the re airing of this episode. Cass Today is our Thursday fashion history mystery Minisode, and today's inquiry comes to us by way of a listener question. And also my recent trip to Target.

[April Callahan]

Do tell.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Well, some. Some time ago, a few months back, listener Stephanie McMurray wrote to us and she requested an episode on the wearing of flags. And I thought this was a really intriguing question, as there are very specific examples in haute couture and in high fash of designers using flags to create garments. Like, for instance, Elsa Schiaparelli worked with the luxury textile manufacturer Colcombe in 1940 to create silks printed with versions of flags of famous French military regiments.

[April Callahan]

Yeah. And designer Elizabeth Haas did something similar around the same time. She pieced together silk flags of various nations for her geographic dress. Silk was being rationed at this time due to its use for parachutes during World War II, so Hawes actually purchased existing flags from the inventory of a flag retailer. So she was quite clever, that one.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And while these are two very specific instances, an entire episode on the wearing of flags, this does not make. So for a few months now, I'd kind of been racking my brain of how to speak about the wearing of flags in a broader context. And that's where my visit to Target comes in. Because I had popped in recently to get some napkins for a party that I was having. And when I walked in, I was met by an entire, entire wall of rainbow garments. And not just any rainbow garments, gender inclusive Rainbow Pride flag garments. And this was a really fun surprise. Put a huge smile on my face.

[April Callahan]

Yes. And because, of course, June is World Pride Month. And if you have ever wondered about how the six striped rainbow flag came to be a proud symbol of the LGBTQ communities, well, that's what we are very excited to delve into today. And I think, April, we can both say that we learned a lot.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes. And not only did I learn a lot, I actually had fun digging into this one, Cass, because I did not know at the time that one of the main figures responsible in the realization of the very first rainbow flag was actually an alum of FIT. His name was James McNamara.

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I know.

[April Callahan]

I had no idea either. This is so very cool.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. So James was part of a trio that helped create the first rainbow flag in 1978, and it was spearheaded by Gilbert Baker, who was a 27 year old gay man living out in Proud in San Francisco after growing up in Kansas. And Baker was an active participant in the gay liberation movement, which had sprung up nearly 10 or so years earlier following the 1969 Stonewall riots in NYC. And we talked about this earlier this week in our gender bending fashion episode. But this moment at the Stonewall riots were when members of the LGBTQ communities stood up to this long legacy of abuse and discrimination at the hands of the NYPD.

[April Callahan]

Yeah. So fast forward to 1978, and this is when Harvey Milk becomes the first openly gay elected official in the state of California. And he was an elected member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a champion of the gay liberation movement. Milk was heartbreakingly assassinated only 10 months after being sworn in.

[Spotify Advertiser]

But.

[April Callahan]

But one of the many initiatives he put in place to support the LGBTQ community of San Francisco prior to his murder were city funds for the pride parade. So, $10,000 to be exact. And it would be $1,000 of this $10,000 budget administered by the Pride foundation that would fund the creation of the first rainbow flags, which Baker conceived of as an alternative to the pink triangle, which had been in use as a symbol of gay liberation in the years leading up to this point.

[Cassidy Zachary]

In Baker's words, quote, at this point, the pink triangle was a symbol for the gay movement, but it represented a dark chapter in the history of same sex rights. The pink triangle was used by the Germans to mark homosexuals during World War II. In the same way that the Star of David was used against the Jews. It functioned as a Nazi tool of oppression. We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love. And then he goes on to say, he says, I thought of the original American flag with its 13 stripes and 13 stars, the colonies breaking away from England to form the U.S. i thought of the vertical red, white, and blue tricolor from the French Revolution and how both flags owed their beginnings to a riot, a rebellion, or a revolution. I thought a gay nation should have a flag, too, to proclaim its own idea of power.

[April Callahan]

And of course, it's really important that we remember that this is, of course, 1978. So the American bicentennial took place in 1976. So flag iconography was everywhere in this moment. So it actually makes sense that the identity of the movement would find expression by way of a flag. So again, in Baker's words, the rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope. In the Book of Genesis, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures. It was also found in Chinese, Egyptian and Native American history. A rainbow flag would be our modern alternative to the pink triangle. Now the rioters who had claimed their freedom at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 would have their own symbol of liberation.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And Cass, we're actually quite lucky that in this moment that Baker's memoir, which is called Rainbow Warrior came out. It was published not even three weeks ago. It's hot off the presses. So suddenly we have quite a lot of primary source information about the flag's origins that we simply didn't have in print before. And Baker passed away in 2017. But he goes on and writes, he says, quote, quote, as artists, we hope that the rainbow flag might be the antithesis of all flags, its meaning more about nature which united us, than nationalities which divided us. He explains the colors of the flag that he assigned at the time. He says, pink is for sex, red is for life. Orange is for healing, yellow is for the sun, green is for nature, turquoise is for magic, blue is for serenity, purple is for spirit. Every color has a meaning, just like the American flag. Symbolism all the way

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[April Callahan]

So if you just did the math here, you will note that Baker mentioned eight colors. So not the six we typically see now on the flag. And indeed, the first set of Rainbow flags had eight colors. They were created for the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade and flown above the United Nations Plaza near Market and Hyde in San Francisco.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Once Baker obtained the funds for the materials that he needed, the work was set in motion. And most of the work was done at the Gay Community center on Grove Street. And the two flags which were flown for the parade took a month to make. And they took so long, partially because of their massive size cast. They were 30ft by 60ft. That is an enormous flag.

[April Callahan]

Yeah. And as one can imagine, this was no small endeavor. After purchasing 1,000 yards of muslin, that muslin needed to be dyed. And for this, Baker enlisted the help of a master tie dyer by the name of Fairy Argyll Rainbow.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Love that I know.

[April Callahan]

Me too. Of course, she now goes by her given name, Lynn Seegerblom. We'll call her Fairy for our intents and purposes today. And Fairy insisted that the team use natural dyes to create the vivid hues, which required the fabric to sit in the dye bath for a week.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And much of this dyeing of the muslin was done on the roof at the community center. And given the fact that the community center did not have hot running water, this complicated the process all that much more. The dyeing process required hot water, which had to be heated on hot plates before people carried up wearing oven mitts to the roof via not stairs, but a ladder. So this was incredibly intricate and complex, and it really must have been a true labor of love.

[April Callahan]

Yeah, and that labor of love did not end there, mind you, because once out of the dye baths, the textiles needed to be rinsed. But apparently the system of hoses arranged for this purpose did not work. So then the team had to carry these incredibly wet and heavy yards of fabric down the ladders from the roof and. And transport them to a laundromat in a distant neighborhood to be rinsed. And apparently they went to this distant neighborhood because they weren't sure what the lasting effect of the dye might be in the washing machines. So it must be said, though, that they did leave the washing machines running on a cycle with a ton of bleach in hopes that no one following them would end up with damaged clothes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yikes. And the work wasn't even done there because once the textiles were dried, the thousand yards then needed to be ironed. And James McNamara, former fit student, came in to assist with this as well as the physical sewing of the flags. And. And one would think, voila, the flags are done now, right? Well, no, they weren't. One could only hope, because after they did a test run, the team realized that the size and the weight of the flags were too heavy and that the fabric was beginning to tear where it joined the rigging. So then they transported the flag once again to the Paramount Flag Company for grommets and reinforcements.

[April Callahan]

And even after this reinforcement, hoisting them stripped the gears of the flagpoles, and that resulted in $90,000 in damage. So. Oh, and did we mention that this was all done guerrilla style? Because the team didn't officially have permission to fly the flags for the parade at this particular location, so they obtained the cranks for the poles discreetly from a city official sympathetic to their cause.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, and when Baker learned of the cost of the damage done to the flagpoles when they were put up, he remarked, quote, send the bill to the National Endowment of the Arts. And I'm not exactly sure how that played out, Cass, but given the immediate reaction to the flags, one of which. So there were two flags, one of which also featured a tie dyed version of the stars seen in the American flag. You know, I'm just saying the NEA probably should have paid it if they didn't, because the Participants at the 1978 SF Gay Freedom Day parade went wild as soon as they saw the flags. And there was really no turning back from this point, because soon demand for rainbow flags exploded.

[April Callahan]

And to meet this demand, Baker returned to Paramount Flag Company for production assistance. And this is the moment when the number of colors on the flag was limited from 8 to 6 for reasons of expense. Paramount also advocated for using nylon, as the fabric was not only lighter, but also carried better in the wind. So together, something like 400 rainbow flags were created for the following Gay Freedom day parade in 1979 and the rest,

[Cassidy Zachary]

as we could say, is history. And as gay rights movements spread around the world, the flag has been continuously adopted as a symbol, but not entirely without controversy, because in some recent years, the flag which Baker created as an emblem of unity has been a bit of a source of derision amongst some within the LGBTQ community.

[April Callahan]

Yes, so the addition of black and brown stripes, for instance, has been called for by some black and Latinx members of the LGBTQ communities who feel underrepresented and frequently face discrimination from within the gay community itself, as also do trans individuals. Trans advocates and activists have called for the addition of pale blue and pale pink stripes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Several iterations of flags incorporating these additional stripes have been created and including Daniel Quasar's Progress Pride flag, which raised more than $25,000 on Kickstarter, far surpassing its $14,000 goal. And Daniel's flag includes a triangle insert at the far left of the flag that has black, brown, pale blue and pale pink stripes within the triangle. And about this he has said, quote, the six stripe LGBTQ flag should be separated from the newer stripes because of their difference in meaning, as well as to shift focus and emph to what is important in our current community climate.

[April Callahan]

On the flip side, some feel the additional stripes unnecessary, as Baker's intention for the flag was to always be about inclusion and unity. And this was actually something that curator Michelle Miller Fisher of the Museum of Modern Art addressed when the MoMA acquired a rainbow flag for the museum's permanent collection in 2015. So she said of the alternate versions of the flag, quote, if new design provocations like this flag can help important conversations happen, that it is a demonstration of the continuing power of the discipline of design to effect change. More power to that.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Indeed, more power to that. And that does it. For somewhat lengthy minisode this week, we want to wish everyone happy World Pride and a safe and festive celebration this weekend here in New York City.

[April Callahan]

We would also love to see all of your ensembles you donned for Pride this month. So send us pics and we will post them to our Instagram stories. For certainly many of you are wearing rainbow stripes and hopefully you consider their legacy in your closet. Next time you get dressed.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Remember we love hearing from you so if you would like to email us you can do [e-mail] and also please be sure to check out our Instagram at dresspodcast, where you'll find images to accompany each week's episodes. As always, thank you to our producers, Casey Pegram Holly Fry and everyone else at iheartradio that makes the show possible each and every week.

[April Callahan]

More dressed coming your way on Tuesday. Dress the History of Fashion is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen to your favorite shows.

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