June 17, 2026·Aesthetic Study
New Orange
From New Amsterdam’s flag to Washington Irving’s prank, the Knicks wear four centuries of New York history.
The Knicks’ blue and orange comes directly from the flag of theDutch Republic, which flew over Manhattan when the city was still called New Amsterdam (and, briefly, New Orange!). That means it’s a 400-year-old color scheme that goes deeper than the jerseys we see today.
The name “Knickerbocker” comes from 1809, when Washington Irving invented a fictional Dutch historian called Diedrich Knickerbocker and promoted the book by planting fake missing-persons ads in the Evening Post. The name stuck to everything — an Astor hotel, a beer, a steamboat, a literary magazine — and by the time the basketball franchise launched in 1946, sports cartoonist Willard Mullin drew the first logo: a dribbling colonial Dutchman in buckled shoes. The garment — baggy trousers gathered at the knee — was standard sportswear through the early 20th century, and Chloé just put them back on the runway.
Father Knickerbocker was less of a mascot and more like New York personified. From the 1870s on, he appeared in Puck cartoons, city health pamphlets, and sheet music as a walking stand-in for New York itself, the way Uncle Sam represents America. In 1949, a Fordham professor named James J. O’Brien put on a rented periwig and colonial costume — $15 a rental, spectacles done to prescription — and flew around the world for 17 days as the character, promoting the city during World Trade Week. Cities may not have personifications anymore, but 20,000 people at MSG in a 400-year-old Dutch color, cheering for a team named after a literary prank, is a strong pitch to bring them back.
- Washington Irving and the birth of the Knickerbocker
- FIT traces the knickerbocker from sportswear to cycling to the runway
- The NYC Municipal Archives on the “real” Father Knickerbocker
- Taylor Swift and the “Stevie Knicks” effect at the Finals
