Achillean / MLM (Men Loving Men) flag

Used on: Achillean / MLM (Men Loving Men)

Designer: pridenpositivity (Tumblr), redrawn by Pride-Flags (DeviantArt) · 2016

Three horizontal stripes, light blue above a pale almost-white centre and light blue again, with a single green carnation centred on the pale stripe. Blue stands for men and masculinity; the carnation is the flower Oscar Wilde and his circle wore, a Victorian signal of love between men. Built as the counterpart to the sapphic flag, which uses the same shape with pink stripes and a violet. Credited to the Tumblr blog pridenpositivity in 2016, with the version in general use redrawn by the Pride-Flags account on DeviantArt on 5 October 2016. Several references say only that it was made by a Tumblr user in 2016 or 2017 and name nobody, so the attribution is reasonably well supported but not certain. No official colour specification has ever been published. The values here are the widely circulated community set; they are community convention, not an authoritative standard. Reference sites differ by a digit or two on the blue and the cream, giving #9AC6E9 and #FAFDEA for the values shown here. This flag is not the gay men's flag. That is a separate 2019 design in greens and indigos, and it has its own entry.

Colour codes: Achillean / MLM (Men Loving Men) flag
Stripe	HEX	RGB	CMYK	Pantone	Meaning
Top stripe	`#99C6EA`	153,198,234	C:35 M:15 Y:0 K:8	n/a	Light blue, for men and masculinity
Middle stripe	`#F9FDEA`	249,253,234	C:2 M:0 Y:8 K:1	n/a	The pale, almost white ground the carnation is set against
Bottom stripe	`#99C6EA`	153,198,234	C:35 M:15 Y:0 K:8	n/a	Light blue, for men and masculinity
Carnation petals	`#ACDD4D`	172,221,77	C:22 M:0 Y:65 K:13	n/a	The green carnation: a Victorian signal of love between men, popularised by Oscar Wilde
Carnation shading	`#659533`	101,149,51	C:32 M:0 Y:66 K:42	n/a	The deeper green in the flower

History

The achillean flag was made to sit beside the sapphic flag, and it borrows its shape: two stripes of one colour with a pale stripe between them, and a single flower in the middle. Where the sapphic flag uses pink and a violet, the achillean flag uses light blue and a green carnation.

The carnation is the point of it. Oscar Wilde and the men around him wore green carnations in the 1890s, and the flower has been read as a quiet signal of love between men ever since. It carries the same weight here that the violet carries on the sapphic flag.

Not the same as the gay men's flag

Achillean, vincian and MLM overlap almost completely as words. Their flags do not. The gay men's flag is a seven-stripe design in greens, white and indigos published by Triton in 2019, and it is often used for achillean and vincian as well, because the words overlap. The achillean flag is this one: blue stripes and a green carnation, from 2016. Both are in use, and people pick whichever fits.