Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses … because their outfits are totally on-trend!

E pointed out to me this magazine ad. This project seems to come from Arrow, the apparel brand, and involves “saving” Ellis Island. Here’s the related Web site.

I don’t know what the threats are to Ellis Island, but saving it sounds like a good idea. What’s a little surprising about this ad is that line at the top of it: “Where the world came together and American style began.”

Yeah? Is that what we’re supposed to think of when we think of why Ellis Island should be “saved”? Its role in the history of American style? What’s that even supposed to mean? And isn’t Ellis Island kind of where the world came together and was instructed to assimilate ASAP? Maybe that’s why everybody in the ad is sporting the same blandly WASP aesthetic. Anyway, the United States certainly benefited from the generations of immigrants it attracted, but I kind of think the contributions weren’t really so much about style.