Wholesale Hanky Code, Honor Tradition, Express Yourself

Paying homage to the longstanding LGBT practice of flagging, this collection brings the Hanky Code to life in a modern and stylish way. Each piece features bold, color-coded designs representing various sexual preferences and roles, just like the original handkerchief system. All the hanky code was a covert sartorial code used predominately by queer men in the 1970s and into the 1980s. Simply put, a bandana is worn in one’s back pocket for the purposes of sexual signaling. The color of the bandana was associated with a specific sexual practice or fetish, and the wearer’s sexual role was indicated by which back pocket the bandana resided in (tops wore bandanas in their left pocket; bottoms wore bandanas in their right pocket). A decoder list was created as other color/fetish associations were added.