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The luxury-goods store hired street artist Shepard Fairey, best known these days for his ubiquitous Obama Hope poster, to design its catalog covers and shopping bags for the coming season. Fairey responded by creating a line of imagery modeled on the work of early-20th-century Russian Constructivist designer Alexander Rodchenko, known for his graphic, propagandist posters. Fairey said he also looked at morale-lifting agitprop posters made for the Works Progress Administration in the 1940s.

The Saks designs include a red, white, and black shopping bag emblazoned with the slogan "Want it!" in a bold black, white, and red and an ad featuring the text "Arm yourself...with a slouchy bag" that shows a model with such a bag raising one fist.

“Some people might think it could be making fun of what’s going on right now,” Fairey said. “But I think most people are sophisticated enough to realize it’s a way of grabbing attention. It’s commerce. I don’t think there is really any political statement embedded in this.”

“What we do every day, really, is propaganda,” said Terron E. Schaefer, the senior vice president for marketing at Saks.