A Nebraskan fashion designer, who has been banned from Omaha Fashion Week for what has been described as an apparent swastika on the back of a jacket, has claimed it was a pinwheel pattern from a repurposed quilt.
Kelli Molczyk has come under fire for the jacket, which some attendees described as a hate symbol. The designer, who owns Re-DeFind Design, a sustainable-focused business and has worked in the fashion industry for 25 years, declined interview requests Monday.
In a lengthy statement that she released Monday, Molczyk said that she has never been accused of creating clothing that had acts or messages of hate on it. But after the controversial jacket that she designed was featured on the runway at last month’s Omaha Fashion Week, the event’s owner Brook Hudson told the Omaha World-Herald that she saw the hate symbol and the production team then pulled it from being shown again during the show.
Hudson did not acknowledge a media request Monday, nor did representatives at Omaha Fashion Week.
The event’s producer Buf Reynolds posted on Instagram that he was “appalled at the sight of a hate symbol walking on the runway. Those who know me know I staunchly stand against everything that symbol stands for. The anger that it evoked in me was palpable and I had to calm myself before talking with anyone. I have been involved in this community for 20 years and continue to work to build a safe welcoming space for everyone that I love.”
In her statement Monday, Molczyk said, “At no point did I believe the pinwheel pattern represented or depicted a swastika, nor was it ever my intent to design the outfit with a swastika. This whole situation has been a rush to judgment against me.“
The statement continued, “I have never been a part of a hate organization, and I condemn, in the strongest terms, the swastika and any form of hate speech or conduct. To associate me with such acts of hate or hate groups is reprehensible and defamatory.”
The designer said the Re-DeFind collection that was shown at Omaha Fashion Week on Feb. 28 was called “the Nostalgic Inheritance Collection.” Stating that it “pulled from the nostalgia of her childhood,” she said the line was made with thrifted menswear items and thrifted textiles.
Molczyk said the outfit in question at Omaha Fashion Week came from an antique pinwheel quilt that she had purchased from “a well-known store” in central Nebraska two years ago. Her emailed statement included images of her designs including one runway look that shows the controversial emblem on the back of a jacket and an image of a pinwheel quilt below it.
Linda Welters, director of the Historic Textile and Costume Collection at the University of Rhode Island, said the image of Molczyk’s design looks like a block from a pinwheel quilt. She said, “It is surprising that in the state of Nebraska, home of the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, fashion show attendees interpreted this image as a swastika.”
Welters, who is also a professor of textiles, fashion merchandising and design at URI, added, “It is a rather simple jacket with a patch sewn on the back. Could it have been a quilt block stitched onto the jacket?”
Asked to comment on the situation, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League said Monday, “While we see no reason to assume ill intent on the designer’s part, there was clear carelessness in choosing to use an image that strongly resembles a swastika without considering its impact on people.”
Britt Tevis, the Phyllis Backer professor of Jewish Studies at Syracuse University, said Monday, “Indeed, to the naked eye, it appears to resemble a swastika, a well-known Nazi symbol that many Jews understand as threatening. Of course, context matters. Perhaps a historian of quilting could shed light on the typical pinwheel and share whether the quilt here is typical. I also think the intention of the designer matters. I suppose I’d like to know, what was he or she hoping to convey with the garment?”
