WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Bstroy, a U.S. fashion brand, finds itself facing a backlash on social media for displaying school shooting-themed hoodies at a show during the New York Fashion Week.
The brand's spring/summer 2020 collection features hoodies tattered with bullet-like holes and embroidered with the names of the schools that went through the nation's deadliest school shootings, including Stoneman Douglas, Columbine, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech.
Photos of the show, posted on Instagram accounts of Bstroy the brand and its co-founder Brick Owens, have drawn widespread attention. Many, especially gun violence survivors and families of those victims, expressed outrage.
"Under what scenario could somebody think this was a good idea?" tweeted Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed last year with 16 others in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida.
"This has made me so upset," said Guttenberg.
"Shawn M Sherlock", a Twitter name identified to be the aunt of another victim in the same shooting, wrote to Owens that her niece once "aspired to be clothing designer like you."
"You should be ashamed of taking advantage of her death to make money," it added.
The design was "just absolutely horrific," the Vick Soto Memorial Fund wrote on Twitter. The fund was established after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that had killed 26, including a teacher who died protecting her students.
"Selling sweatshirts with our name and bullet holes. Unbelievable," it tweeted.
Bstroy did not respond directly to the outcry. Instead, it explained its inspiration behind the collection.
"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," wrote a handout shared by Owens on Instagram.
"We are reminded all the time of life's fragility, shortness, and unpredictability, yet we are also reminded of its infinite potential," it said.
In this past summer, several mass shootings claimed scores of lives in the United States, bringing back public attention to the gun violence epidemic. The White House and Congressional Democrats, however, remain divided over what actions to take.
There have been 40,331 gun violence-related incidents in the country this year, killing a total of 10,681 people, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.
