Pacific Sunwear picked the worst possible time to blatantly advertise merchandise from the A$AP Mob (home to A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg and others) that depicts an upside-down American flag. The store came under fire for carrying the product both in its stores and online when an aggrieved shopper posted a photo of a store mannequin wearing the offending piece of apparel. The black shirt features the flag upside-down on the front, with other logos on the sleeves.
The outrage has resulted in the company pulling the product from both stores and its online market. PacSun was apparently surprised by the backlash, and released a statement that pandered both to patriotic Americans and A$AP fans.
"As a retailer grounded in youth culture, PacSun values artistic and creative expression through the brands that we sell in our stores," it wrote, before taking a breath to shift directions shamelessly. "Out of respect for those who have put their lives on the line for our country, we have decided to stop selling the licensed flag t-shirt and are removing it from our stores and website immediately. We thank the men and women in uniform for their extraordinary service."
USA Today, playing it safe as a media source, reports that "Calls to PacSun corporate were not returned on Memorial Day, so it's unclear whether the shirt was accidentally printed upside down, purposefully designed as a political statement, or neither," but we're willing to put our journalistic integrity on the line and guess that it was done on purpose...because the A$AP Mob has been using similar imagery for years.
In other news, we did learn that hanging a flag upside down isn't necessarily a sign of disrespect but can also indicate that a ship or base is in "extreme danger to life or property," according to the U.S. Flag Code.
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