Brooklyn Industries Exploiting Sandy Disaster Areas For Tasteless Photo Shoot

Hey, beautiful young people, the Rockaways Revisited 2013 collection is here! This is your chance to look Sandy-chic for the upcoming summer season as you delightfully ride your bicycle over the rubble of your devastated community! But, seriously, what the hell is going on here?

According to a report by Gothamist, the hipster fashion source known as Brooklyn Industries has unveiled their 2013 summer collection inspired by the Rockaways, an area hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy. The catalog features Wisconsin-born transplants with ugly sweaters and other tired rehashes of early 90s clothing bicycling, jumping, and generally looking too-cool-to-care all over the the Sandy-battered Rockaways. In the background, sand is piled in streets, iconic landmarks are fenced off, and homes stand dilapidated.

Even the boardwalk’s cement foundation – the only thing that remains after the wooden planks were stripped by the storm – are playground fodder for these kidults.

This might be not be so colossally insensitive if Brooklyn Industries was planning to donate a portion of their profits to Sandy victims, but they aren’t. The company claims that their donation budget is empty.

Company representative Teddy Vuong tried to defend the campaign.

“Our idea to design the line came last summer because we found that the Rockaways had been a consistent source of inspiration in our personal lives,” Vuong said.

Vuong went on to explain the connections that many Brooklyn Industries employees have to the area and how deeply concerned they were after the devastation following Sandy. They also hoped people buying clothing like the “Rockaway Cotton Slub Pullover” would actually travel to the Rockaways and spend some money in the beleaguered region. Somehow, I doubt it.

Très cool, assholes.