Description
- ✦ 60% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 40% polyester fleece
- ✦ Fabric weight: 10 oz./yd² (339 g/m²)
- ✦ Brushed interior fleece for supreme softness
- ✦ Oversized, unisex fit—goes big on comfort
- ✦ Double-layered, no-drawcord hood
- ✦ Front pocket for essentials
- ✦ Blank product sourced from Nicaragua
- ✦ This product is made on demand. No minimums.
Chicago Flag Symbolic Edition: Where Civic Design Meets Modern Values
The Flag That Conquered a City—Then America
In 1917, Wallace deGroot Cecil Rice, a Harvard lawyer turned Chicago Tribune journalist who lectured on heraldry at the Art Institute, created what would become America’s most beloved city flag. Hired to write competition rules for Chicago’s flag contest, Rice submitted his own design—and won unanimous city council approval on April 4, 1917, the same day the U.S. entered WWI. His design featured two light blue bars representing Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, three white bands for the North, West, and South sides, and initially two red six-pointed stars. Rice specifically chose six-pointed stars with 30-degree angles to distinguish them from state symbols and religious iconography, claiming this design was unique among world flags at the time.
Four Stars, Six Points Each, Infinite Meanings
Today’s four stars were added incrementally: two in 1917 (Great Fire of 1871, World’s Columbian Exposition 1893), a third in 1933 (Century of Progress), and the fourth in 1939 (Fort Dearborn). Each star’s six points carry specific meanings—Fort Dearborn represents Transportation, Labor, Commerce, Finance, Populousness, and Salubrity. The Great Fire symbolizes Religion, Education, Aesthetics, Justice, Beneficence, and Civic Pride. When Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson tried changing them to five-pointed “American” stars in 1928, the city ultimately preserved Rice’s vision, understanding these weren’t just stars but “peculiarly and singularly Chicago stars.”
The Chicago Design System: Democracy in Typography
In March 2019, Chicago launched something unprecedented—the first municipal design system built for both government and public use. Developed with Ogilvy and type designer Patric King, the Chicago Design System democratizes civic identity. Its crown jewel is Big Shoulders, a custom typeface inspired by Chicago architecture and available free on Google Fonts. The font includes the Chicago star as a discretionary ligature, literally embedding the flag’s symbolism into everyday typography. Official colors are precisely specified: Flag Blue (Pantone 298, HEX #41B6E6) and Star Red (Pantone 185, HEX #E4002B), with every combination meeting WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards. This open-source approach, released under Creative Commons, means any Chicagoan can create materials that feel authentically Chicago.
The Symbolic Edition: Four New Icons for Modern Chicago
Our Symbolic Edition reimagines the flag’s four positions with universal symbols that capture Chicago’s contemporary spirit: Money ($), Power (⏻), Love (♥), and Peace (☮). These aren’t random choices—they reflect the four forces that have always driven Chicago. Money honors the commodity exchanges, the Magnificent Mile, the hustle that built skyscrapers from swampland. Power represents both electrical innovation (from the World’s Fair’s White City to Commonwealth Edison) and political force (from the original Mayor Daley to Harold Washington to Barack Obama). Love captures Chicago’s fierce neighborhood loyalty, from Bronzeville to Bridgeport, Pilsen to Polish Village. Peace acknowledges both the city’s struggles and its aspirations—from Jane Addams’s Hull House to the modern movements for justice.
From Forgotten to Phenomenon
Despite ranking 9.03 out of 10 by the North American Vexillological Association (second only to Washington, D.C.), Chicago’s flag nearly disappeared. By 1928, it was “generally forgotten.” In 1958, neighbors mistook it for Israel’s flag. Revival came unexpectedly when 1970s punk rockers bought surplus CPD jackets and kept the flag patches on. By the 1990s, young Chicagoans embraced it as identity. Roman Mars’s 2015 TED Talk declared people “love Chicago more because the flag is so cool.” Today, it’s one of America’s most tattooed civic symbols, appearing on everything from Revolution Brewing labels to Cubs Win flags.
The Oversized Hoodie: Maximum Comfort, Maximum Chicago
This isn’t just apparel—it’s wearable Chicago philosophy. The oversized fit reflects Chicago’s big shoulders mentality. The no-drawcord hood keeps it clean and architectural, like Sullivan’s form-follows-function buildings. The brushed fleece interior provides comfort for Chicago winters that test your will. The roomy cut works for everyone—from Loop commuters to Logan Square artists, from South Side poets to North Side techies. This is democratic design in action, just like the Chicago Design System intended: professional quality made accessible to all.
Why The Symbolic Edition Matters
Chicago has always been about transformation. Wallace Rice transformed competition rules into winning design. The city transformed swampland into skyscrapers, stockyards into neighborhoods, industrial riverfront into public space. The Chicago Design System transformed municipal branding from top-down control into democratic participation, giving citizens the same tools as city departments.
Our Symbolic Edition continues this tradition. By replacing the historical stars with contemporary symbols, we’re not erasing history—we’re adding to it. Money, Power, Love, and Peace aren’t departures from Chicago values; they’re distillations of what the original star points represented. Transportation became Money (the flow of commerce). Labor became Power (collective and electrical). Populousness became Love (community bonds). Salubrity became Peace (wellness and justice). This is how living cities work—honoring the past while speaking to the present.
“The flag provides historical continuity and emotional resonance, while the design system translates these values into contemporary applications.”
— Chicago Design System philosophy, 2019
Wrap yourself in Chicago’s evolution.
From Wallace Rice’s living room floor to the Chicago Design System’s open-source democracy, from six-pointed stars to universal symbols, this oversized hoodie carries the full weight of Chicago comfort and the lightness of its democratic spirit.
Heritage Tribute Collection: The Symbolic Edition is an original artistic interpretation inspired by the Chicago flag (1917, public domain) and informed by the Chicago Design System’s democratic principles. Features original symbolic elements (money, power, love, peace) as creative commentary on urban values. Not an official City of Chicago product. Chicago flag design is public domain; Chicago Design System is Creative Commons CC0 1.0. Part of Vintage Chicago’s mission to evolve civic symbols for contemporary expression.
