Stars, Stripes, Kate Upton

Just ahead of the Fourth of July, someone handed Kate Upton an American flag bikini and pointed a camera at her, and the result was exactly what you’d expect and also somehow more than that. She had this quality in 2012—fresh off the viral Cat Daddy slow-motion clip—where the camera simply couldn’t look away, and neither could anyone else. Patriotism has rarely been deployed so effectively.