Chloé Gosselin Honors Wild Horses and Indigenous Heritage in America250’s “United Flags of Fashion”

Chloé Gosselin Honors Wild Horses and Indigenous Heritage in America250’s “United Flags of Fashion”

The Nevada flag, created in collaboration with American Wild Horse Conservation and Indigenous partners, celebrates the freedom, spirit, and enduring cultural significance of the American West

NEW YORK, July 29, 2026 — American Wild Horse Conservation (AWHC) is proud to celebrate acclaimed designer and AWHC Ambassador Chloé Gosselin’s contribution to United Flags of Fashion, a landmark public installation honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States.

Presented by Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), in partnership with America250 and Rockefeller Center, United Flags of Fashion invited more than 100 American designers to reimagine the flags of the nation’s states and territories through their own creative perspectives.

Gosselin’s interpretation of the Nevada flag, titled “Freedom in the Wild Light,” is a tribute to the wild horses, desert landscapes, Indigenous history, and public lands that define the state, and the American West. “When Vogue and Cfda asked me to reimagine the flag of Nevada all I could think of was this herd of wild horses galloping through the mountains becoming one with the land, above them a deep sky in the Nevada blue that is our current flag.”

Created in collaboration with American Wild Horse Conservation and members of the Mono Lake Kutzadika’a Tribe, the flag reflects Gosselin’s deeply held belief that wild horses belong on the landscapes they have shaped for generations. Its imagery draws upon the desert and mountain horizons of Nevada, with wild horses moving freely across the land. The horses are based on an image Gosselin took while visiting Fish Springs herd in Nevada last May and the horse leading them is Gosselin’s horse Milo. The patterns on the left represent healing, the triangles are nature and mountains, the eye shape represents medicine and water. The traditional silver star for Nevada was replaced by a beaded Native American north star representing guidance and hope.Gosselin hand painted it on silk, a technique she learned from her grandparents as a child.

“Art and fashion have the power to reach people in ways traditional advocacy sometimes cannot,” said Patricia Miller, Executive Director of American Wild Horse Conservation. “They invite us to feel something, and that emotional connection can become a pathway to awareness, advocacy, and lasting change. We are profoundly grateful to Chloé for using her extraordinary creative voice to honor America’s wild horses, our public lands, and the Indigenous communities whose histories are inseparable from them. Her ambassadorship is helping bring the story of the wild horse into culture in a powerful and beautiful way.And in America 250, as we honor and recognize our country’s history and symbolism, the Wild Horse is the original American icon’

For Indigenous communities of the Mono Lake region, wild horses are not simply symbols of the West. They are part of a living cultural history and an enduring relationship among people, animals, and the land.

“Sometimes I try to find the right words, but nothing ever feels big enough. Being Indigenous to this land - to the mountains, the sage, the water, the wind - its something that lives deeper than language. It isnt just where I come from, its who I am. And the wild horses, they carry the same breadth of this place. Their hooves on the earth feel like the heartbeat of my ancestors. When I look at them, I see memory. I see resistance. I see a living part of our story that no one can erase. There are no words that can hold all of that. There are only feelings - heavy, powerful, sacred. It is knowing the land not as a landscape, but as a relative. It is knowing the horses not as animals, but as reminders of where we come from and who we still are.” Ronda Kauk, 6 generations, member of the Kootzaduka’s Tribe of California and Nevada.

Gosselin, a CFDA member and longtime AWHC Ambassador, has consistently used her platform to bring greater visibility to the threats facing America’s wild horses and burros. Her Nevada flag transforms that advocacy into a public work of art—one that asks viewers to consider what freedom means and what must be protected for future generations. “As a horse girl, I looked for places to witness the beauty of Wild Horses in Nevada. For a French girl from Normandie it is in the beauty of the mountains and the land that I found refuge in a home in Nevada.”

The collaboration arrives at a pivotal moment for America’s wild horses and Western public lands. As the nation reflects on 250 years of history, AWHC believes the commemoration must also inspire a renewed commitment to the landscapes, wildlife, and living cultures that form America’s shared inheritance.

The United Flags of Fashion installation features 130 reimagined flags and will fly at The Rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City through September 4, 2026.

About American Wild Horse Conservation

American Wild Horse Conservation is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting wild horses and burros on public lands. Through advocacy, science, policy reform, and humane conservation programs, AWHC works to ensure that these iconic animals remain wild and free on the Western landscapes they call home.

Media Contact:

American Wild Horse Conservation

Press@americanwildhorse.org

For Chloe Gosselin/Earthquake Management

infol@earthquakemgmt.com