Omaha Fashion Week let a swastika-like jacket walk its runway — backlash, apology, ban

At Omaha Fashion Week's February 27 – March 1, 2025 shows, designer Kelli Molczyk — a Kearney, Nebraska sustainable-fashion maker behind the label Re-deFind — walked an upcycled jacket with a pattern that read, to many in the audience, as a swastika across the back. Molczyk said it was a pinwheel design from a repurposed antique quilt. Attendees were offended, images of the look spread online, and outrage grew in the weeks after the shows.

The organisation's response lagged the damage. Owner Brook Hudson later said her team 'clocked the problem during the show' and kept the jacket off the runway again, and apologised to participants backstage. But it was not until March 20 — three weeks after the show — that the organisers published a statement disavowing the symbol, saying they had not seen the jacket beforehand, banning Molczyk from future editions and promising rewritten backstage protocols.

The dispute then dragged on for months. In August 2025 the two sides issued a joint statement: Omaha Fashion Week concluded Molczyk had followed its headlining-designer protocols with no intent to display a hate symbol, and Molczyk acknowledged she had been too close to the design to see how it could be read. She was invited to apply for future events but said she would not participate.