During Fashion Week in New York, one designer with the company “BStroy” debuted hoodies caked in bullet holes and dawning the names like “Sandy Hook,” “Columbine,” and “Parkland.”
The hoodies retail from anywhere between $250 to $410.
The line quickly received heat online — including victims as well as family members of people who died in mass school shootings.
“Under what scenario could someone think this was a good idea?” tweeted Fred Guttenburg, whose daughter was murdered in the Parkland shooting in Feb. 2018. “This has me so upset.”
In a Facebook memorial page dedicated to Vicki Soto – a teacher killed –
A Facebook memorial page dedicated to Vicki Soto, a teacher killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, also criticized the collection.
“As a Sandy Hook family, what you are doing here is absolutely disgusting, hurtful, wrong, and disrespectful,” the statement says. “You’ll never know what our family went through after Vicki died protecting her students. Our pain is not to be used for your fashion.”
One of the company’s founders, Brick Owens, attempted to defend his “Samsara” collection in an Instagram post.
“Sometimes life can be painfully ironic,” Owens wrote. “Like the irony of dying violently in a place you considered to be a safe, controlled environment, like a school. We are reminded all the time of life’s fragility, shortness, and unpredictability, yet we are also reminded of its infinite potential.”