My lifelong passion for flags has taught me about design, diplomacy and who I am

I grew up memorizing the domain. Non in capitals or currencies, but in colours and shapes. In stripes and stars. In the arc of a crescent or the silhouette of a maple leafage.

I was terzetto years older when I first flipped through a sticker book of national flags, and I've been hooked on vexillology — the study of flags — ever since.

There's a quiet thrill to recognizing a flag no one else in the room does. Luxembourg and the Netherlands? Just a subtle shade difference. Slovenia and Slovakia? Both have white, blue and red, but it's the coat of arms that sets them apart: one has a mountain, the other a double cross. It's a visual code, and I love cracking it.

From my family's kitchen window in Montreal, a Canadian flag flying atop a tall municipal pole across the street greets me every morning, just as it did growing up.

When it flew at half-mast, my mother would say, "Someone passed." The flag became our weather vane and our obituary page. If it flapped loudly, it was windy. If it hung still, it was a calm day.

I never thought much about the rituals I had grown up with. They were just part of the backdrop of my life. But that began to change when I started travelling and meeting others who noticed and interpreted flags in their own ways.

In May 2022, I represented Canada at the G7 Youth Summit in Berlin. On a visit to the Canadian Embassy in the city, I spotted a "friendship flag" pin — two tiny flags representing Canada and Germany — on the lapel of a diplomat named Robert.

"Nice pin," I said.

Without missing a beat, he unfastened it and replied, "Here. Take this with you. It's yours."

It was a simple gesture, but it carried more weight than I expected. To wear that pin was to represent Canada, and with it, the values I hoped we projected abroad: respect, openness, humility, curiosity. It reminded me that wherever I went, I wasn't just a visitor. I was a guest with a story, and that story included a red maple leaf.

Of course, flags can be controversial. They have been wielded for harm as much as for hope. They're loaded with meaning: pride and pain, allegiance and exclusion.

I've watched the Canadian flag mean different things to different people: a banner at demonstrations, a symbol set aside in grief. But I choose to keep wearing it as a promise to listen.

At their best, I see flags as unifiers.

As Roman Mars said in my favourite TED Talk, "There's just something about them that works on our emotions." Their design matters. Their stories matter.

The story of Canada's flag still stirs me. Not just because of what it looks like, but because of how it came to be.

Born of fierce debate in 1964, raised for the first time on Parliament Hill in 1965, it was a deliberate act of independence. We'd flown the Union Jack and the Canadian Red Ensign for years. But during the Suez Crisis, Egyptian observers mistook our flag for the British one. Canada needed a symbol of its own.

What followed were a few thousand concepts submitted by Canadians, along with strong opinions from every corner of the country. The final choice: George Stanley's design, an 11-pointed red maple leaf flanked by red bars. It followed the rules of good vexillography: simple, symbolic and instantly recognizable. Today, it's considered one of the best-designed national flags in the world.

Mars even called it "the gold standard." I agree.

We didn't inherit the flag. We imagined it. We built it together. That spirit resonates with me. It reminds me that identity is something we shape. Ultimately, it's a choice. And that, to me, is beautiful.

While flags carry the weight of nations, I've found they also carry human connection — sometimes enough to change the course of a conversation, or even a life.

I once asked my Albanian friend how she met her Italian Canadian husband.

"We were on our first date," she said. "He knew the Albanian flag. That's when I knew."

Some people fall in love in a single glance. Others with a symbol.

Flags can be intensely personal. My favourite flag? Canada's, of course. But tied for first is Italy's green, white and red.

All four of my grandparents came from Calabria in southern Italy. They carried that flag in their hearts, and so do I. That tricolour connects me to a lineage, to stories told over plates of pasta and Sanpellegrino and to the familiar rhythm of family gatherings.

When Italy won the 2020 UEFA European Championship, I clipped a window flag to my car, and drivers honked and waved in celebration.

Flags can bind strangers into fleeting, roaring communities.

Online, people debate flags' proportions and palette choices with the passion of sports fans.

I've seen flags stitched into backpacks on hostel floors and on cheeks during the World Cup. My family and I love watching the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, seeing each flag waved by its country's flag bearer.

I collect friendship flag pins now before I travel internationally to represent Canada, often as a youth delegate for various summits. Each pin is a tiny handshake between places. I keep them in a soft felt display book, the pages filled with reminders of where I've been. And before every trip, I pack a small pouch with three or four pins I might wear. One of them is always a red maple leaf. Like armour. Like memory.

Flags aren't just symbols. They're stories stitched into fabric, flapping in wind, folded in drawers. They say, I'm here. I belong. I remember.

Maybe that's why I keep noticing them. A flag tells me when someone's gone. A flag tells me where I am. A flag, sometimes, tells me who I am.

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Freelance contributor

Michael Lecchino is a writer, researcher, public servant, student and volunteer based in Montreal. A quadrilingual Italian Canadian, he studies marketing at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business and volunteers as president of the Conseil jeunesse de LaSalle. Lecchino’s passions span design, diplomacy, public storytelling, community involvement and the great outdoors.

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