Fashion brand ripped on social media for creating ‘school shooting hoodies’

NEW YORK - A fashion company faced severe backlash on social media after showing models wearing hoodies covered in bullet holes with the names of schools where mass shootings happened.

The brand is called Bstroy, which is dubbed a “neo-native menswear design house.” On its Instagram account, it showed off male models wearing the hoodies that are part of the spring 2020 collection.

“Elementary school kids died…tf wrong with y’all,” user bmb_john wrote.

Another Instagram account appeared to be from a memorial fund for a victim in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where a 20-year-old gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children and six staff members.

“As a Sandy Hook family, what you are doing here is absolutely disgusting, hurtful, wrong and disrespectful. 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,” the user, Vicki Soto Memorial, said.

The other hoodies had the school names Columbine, Stoneman Douglas and Virginia Tech.

Bstroy responded to the backlash with a photo of a statement from the artist Samsara on Instagram.

“Sometimes life can be painfully ironic. Like the irony of dying violently in a place you considered to be a safe, controlled environment, like school,” the statement said. “We are reminded all the time of life’s fragility, shortness and unpredictability yet are also reminded of its infinite potential.”

The fashion brand Bstroy was created by Atlanta natives Brick Owens and Dieter “Du” Grams.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.