A New York clothing company has introduced school shooting hoodies that have bullet holes in them and feature the names of four schools where nearly 100 students were shot to death, including Sandy Hook, Columbine, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Virginia Tech.
Bstroy, a self-described “neo-native” post-apocalypse streetwear brand, according to Paper Magazine, has been slammed with comments -- of both support and disgust -- after showcasing their Spring 2020 menswear collection called “Samsara” in a series of posts on Instagram.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Bstroy (@bstroy.us) on Sep 15, 2019 at 10:58am PDT
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Bstroy (@bstroy.us) on Sep 15, 2019 at 11:00am PDT
"Under what scenario could somebody think this was a good idea? This has me so upset. If any of my followers no [sic] anybody involved with this clothing line, please ask them to stop it immediately,” tweeted Fred Guttenberg whose daughter Jaime was killed in 2018 by Nikolas Cruz in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting.
Under what scenario could somebody think this was a good idea? This has me so upset. If any of my followers no anybody involved with this clothing line, please ask them to stop it immediately.https://t.co/VzAlog0TCt
— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) September 17, 2019(MORE: 9-year-old double-amputee walks the runway at New York Fashion Week)A memorial page for Vicki Soto, one of the teachers killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting responded directly to the Instagram post of the Sandy Hook hoodie saying “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.”
“This is disgusting,” actress Alyssa Milano simply tweeted.
This is disgusting. https://t.co/9MOMizLqWe
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 17, 2019One of the company’s founders, Brick Owens, responded to the critics by releasing a statement on Instagram.
“Sometimes life can be painfully ironic,” the statement read. Like the irony of dying violently in a place you consider to be a safe, controlled environment, like school. We are reminded all the time of life’s fragility, shortness, and unpredictability yet we are also reminded of its infinite potential. It is this push and pull that creates the circular motion that is the cycle of life. Nirvana is the goal we hope to reach through meditation and healthy practices that counter our destructive habits. Samsara is the cycle we must transcend to reach Nirvana.”