A designer who crafted a jacket for Nebraska fashion week that appeared to feature a swastika has claimed the controversial piece was a misunderstanding.
Kelli Molczyk faced immediate backlash after the garment was seen on the runway at Omaha Fashion Week in late February.
She has since claimed that the hate symbol was not intentional and revealed that the piece started as an ‘antique pinwheel quilt remnant purchased from a well-known store in Central Nebraska two years ago.’
‘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,’ Molczyk wrote in an Instagram post.
‘To associate me with any such acts of hate or hate groups is reprehensible and defamatory,’ she added to the March 21 post.
Organizers said they are ‘appalled by what appeared on the runway,’ and they ‘staunchly stand against everything that symbol stands for.’
‘This was not something that was seen beforehand,’ organizers said in a March 20 post on Facebook.
‘It was not at our rack check, which happens a few weeks before shows, and was not put on the model until shortly before she walked the runway, so our team did not have the chance to pull the garment until after it had walked the runway once.’
Designer Kelli Molczyk faced immediate backlash after the garment was seen on the runway at Omaha Fashion Week in late February
They added the designer will not be allowed to return to the Omaha Fashion Week runway or to her panelist position.
‘We are changing protocols backstage and our pre-show screening processes to prevent this from happening in the future,’ they continued.
‘Omaha Fashion Week exists to give a platform to designers,’ they continued. ‘We see that it is a great place to raise awareness for larger issues.
‘Our immediate reaction was to put a statement out, but we also did not want to give a voice to the symbol of hate.’
Fashion week owner Brook Hudson told KMTV that usually the outfits will go down the runway three times during the show but Molczyk’s design was immediately flagged and only sent out once.
She told KMTV the jacket was ‘ripped’ off the model after the first time she appeared on the runway and that she was sent back out without it on.
‘When the model turned, the whole production team was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s a swastika, we’ve got to remove that immediately,”‘ she recalled.
Hudson told the publication that all designers are required to participate in rack check weeks before the event, with no one picking up anything awry about Molczyk’s collection.
She has since claimed that the hate symbol was not intentional and revealed that the piece started as an ‘antique pinwheel quilt remnant purchased from a well-known store in Central Nebraska two years ago’
An image of the jacket went viral after a woman, Whitney Hansen, posted a photo of the model on the runway to Facebook on March 19.
She criticized the fashion week’s organizers for waiting to make a statement, telling KMTV she wasn’t convinced the design was a misunderstanding.
‘Your organization should be making a clear *public* stand against this very *public* action that occurred during your event, whether you applied private consequences or not,’ she berated the organization in the Facebook post.
According to Hudson, Omaha Fashion Week has assured that going forward, all garments will be thoroughly checked.
