Did you know that Omaha, Nebraska has a Fashion Week? Me neither. Unfortunately, “The Midwest’s Premier Fashion Event,” as the event has called itself, is now receiving national attention because of a garment that some say features an antisemitic hate symbol.
At some point during the OFW Spring 2025 presentations that were held between February 27 and March 1, designer Kelli Molczyk showed a jacket from her collection which appeared to have a swastika design on the back. Since the event, Molczyk took to Instagram to clarify that the symbol was “an antique pinwheel quilt remnant” from a quilt she bought at “a well-known store” in Central Nebraska. “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,” Molcyzk wrote in the caption of an Instagram post she made today. “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 any such acts of hate or hate groups is reprehensible and defamatory.”
For reference, here’s the garment in question:
… So, yeah.
Molcyzk’s statement comes as she has received backlash online and from Omaha Fashion Week itself.
“During shows a hateful image did make it onto the runway,” an unnamed OFW producer wrote in a letter posted to the event’s Facebook page yesterday morning. “This was not something that was seen beforehand. 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.”
“Omaha Fashion Week stands against hate,” they said, adding that Molcyzk is banned from future events and that the incident is prompting them to change their screening and backstage protocols. In an interview with local TV news channel KMTV, OFW owner Brook Hudson shared that at the time, the event organizers issued an apology to their staff and attendees. It’s unclear how much more attention the incident will get, but as New York Magazine just reported on the incident, my guess is there is still more to come in the Omaha Fashion Week swastika scandal.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time an antisemitic controversy has touched the fashion world, nor will it likely be the last. In 2010, fashion designer John Galliano drunkenly accosted a group of Jewish women in Paris saying, “I love Hitler.” In the 2010s, Zara and Urban Outfitters released t-shirt designs which resembled the concentration camp uniforms worn by Jewish and gay prisoners. And before that, in 2007, Zara came out with a line of purses with swastikas on them. In 2020, fast fashion retailer Shein came under fire for selling a “swastika pendant necklace.” Even today, brands like Chanel and Hugo Boss are haunted by their past connections to Nazis, and Von Dutch is remembered for its connection to self-proclaimed racist and Nazi Kenneth Robert Howard.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think this incident rises to any of those levels. Based on the information currently available, I don’t think Kelli Molczyk was intending to put a swastika on the runway. It seems to me this major and harmful oversight could’ve been avoided if Molczyk was in community with Jews — my guess is she isn’t — or, I don’t know, man, if she had maybe watched “The Sound of Music” a little more closely. Regardless, it absolutely should’ve been caught by the event organizers at Omaha Fashion Week.
And yet, they didn’t catch it, so a swastika-like symbol wasn’t stopped from walking a runway and now I know that Omaha Fashion Week exists, and so do you. Oy.
