Rainbow Pride Flag 3' x 5' Polyester

The six-stripe rainbow flag is the design most people picture when they hear the words pride flag, and the Flags Importer Rainbow Pride Flag gives it to you in the familiar 3 × 5 ft house size. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet run in wide horizontal bands, big enough to read from the street on a porch bracket and still manageable on a bedroom or dorm wall.

Where the six stripes came from

Artist Gilbert Baker made the first one for San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day celebration in the late 1970s. His original had eight stripes, each with a meaning: hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit. Hot pink fabric was hard to source, so that stripe was dropped, and turquoise followed soon after, with indigo swapped for a royal blue. The six-band version that resulted is still the one flown at most pride events, and it's the one printed here.

Newer designs build on it rather than replace it. The Philadelphia version adds black and brown stripes for queer people of colour, and the Progress version adds a chevron at the hoist. If you'd rather fly one of those, the Philly Rainbow Flag and the Progress Pride Flag come in the same 3 × 5 ft size.

How the print looks front and back

The colours are dye-sublimated: heat moves the dye into the polyester fibres instead of laying paint on top, so the stripes stay soft and don't crack along fold lines. Printing is on one side only, and the dye travels through the cloth, so the bands show on the reverse too. Because this design is plain horizontal stripes with no lettering or emblem, the back looks almost the same as the front, just a little paler. That makes it a sensible pick for a window, where people inside and outside will both see it. Polyester also dries fast after rain and weighs little, so a light wind lifts it off the pole instead of leaving it hanging limp.

Hanging it at home or at an event

A reinforced header tape runs down the hoist edge with two metal grommets set into it. On a house pole, clip the grommets to the rings or tie them on with short lengths of cord. Indoors, two small nails or removable hooks through the grommets will hold it flat on a wall, and a slim tension rod tucked through the top grommet can carry it across a window frame. For a parade, lash the grommets to a lightweight pole and leave the fly end free so it can move. On a fence or railing, tie through the grommets first and add soft clips at the fly corners; spreading the pull across several points stops the fabric tearing at one spot in a gust.

Picking a rainbow flag size

Three by five feet suits most porch brackets, apartment balconies and open stretches of wall. A 2 × 3 ft version fits a narrow window or the space above a desk, while the 4 × 6 ft version is meant for tall poles and big gatherings.

Specifications

• Brand: Flags Importer
• Design: six-stripe rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet)
• Size: 3 × 5 ft (about 91 × 152 cm)
• Material: polyester
• Print: dye-sublimated on one side; the colour shows through to the back
• Hanging: header tape with two metal grommets

See every size and identity flag we carry in our LGBTQ+ Pride collection.