All-American attire: Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney and Slimane have embraced the stars and stripes this spring

Everything from jeans to handbags was splattered with stars

Riot of red, white and blue: Marc Jacobs spring/summer 2016 (Getty Images)

New York Fashion Week's winter instalment ground to a halt yesterday. But the American dream lives on. Hasn't it always? If there's one universally recognised symbol, it's the stars and stripes, which have cropped up over everything and all over the place this spring.

The majordomo of star-spangled sartorial banners is Marc Jacobs, who injected his spring/summer 2016 collection with a hefty dose of patriotic power via a riot of red, white and blue, Americana prints and stonewashed denim, all influenced by his obsession with New York City. It was an emphatic, personal – but not unique – statement.

Witness a similar mood emerging in labels as diverse as Stella McCartney (1 - see gallery above) and Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane. You understand the latter: Slimane lives in Los Angeles and showed his latest collection (which many speculate to be his Saint Laurent swansong) at the city's Palladium theatre. His star-splattered handbag (2) is only the latest example of his incongruous love affair with the US of A at this storied French house. McCartney fuses not one but two quintessential American tropes – blue jeans and more of those stars – in denim trousers with a relaxed silhouette emblematic of American mid-century sportswear. Or, maybe, the slack slacks sported by the Eighties Brat Pack.

That's the thing with many of these clothes: it can be tricky, and loaded with double-meaning. Overload on the stripes and spangles and you can end up resembling a wayward Evel Knievel. Reimagining wardrobe staples is a rather more secure way to experiment: a loose striped shirt (3) or subtle cowboy heels (4) on ankle boots nod to the west, without winding up too wild.