Why Do Men Love Flag Bikinis?
By Piper Weiss, Shine
Staff | Fashion – Mon, Jul 2, 2012 8:51 PM EDT
Kate Upton in a flag bikini sucking on a red white and blue ice pop nearly
"crashed the Internet" according to GQ magazine's Twitter feed, while
it promoted July's cover girl with abandon. Love it or hate it, and people did both, the cover drew national attention.
Upton, blond bombshell of the moment, can take most of the credit.
But so can her stars-and-stripes bathing suit.
"The flag bikini is a quintessential men's magazine look," Buzzfeed's Amy O'Dell wrote of the magazine's cover, observing
two other past GQ covers -- featuring Jessica Simpson and Rachel Bilson -- in patriotic bikinis.
"Women's
magazines definitely play with flag stuff, especially when they want to get
extra-American around the Fourth and all that, but they don't make any of their
cover girls wear it in triangle top form since it's generally perceived as tacky
and anti-style."
That's because when they're not gracing the cover of
men's magazines, they're gracing the exploited areas of reality stars or
self-made celebrities. Heidi Montag, Courtney
Stodden, and Real Housewives' Gretchen Rossi and Alexis Bellino all
wore skimpy versions of the flag in exchange for a photo op and prime real
estate in a tabloid magazine.
flag or regular