How a Fashion Brand Got the Industry’s Top Models (and Me) to Inadvertently Wear Neo-Nazi Symbols

A Cautionary Tale of Doing Your Due Diligence

I’m a journalist, I should’ve known better. Especially me, someone who loves to obsessively research things. I will spiral over the most random details for hours. I’ve deep-dived into Paris Hilton’s 2000s email leaks, whether Nicole Kidman was fighting with Salma Hayek at the Balenciaga show, and the cultural impact of Juicy Couture. I will go full detective mode over the most meaningless pop culture shit, yet when a PR agency invited me to a Paris Fashion Week afterparty, dressed me in a brand’s clothes, and sent me on my way? I didn’t even do a basic Google search. And because of that, I, along with Vittoria Ceretti, Mona Tougaard, Anyma, Mahmood,and plenty of other unsuspecting people, ended up wearing actual Nazi runes to a Paris Fashion Week party.

I wish I was exaggerating.

Mona Tougaard & Vittoria Ceretti at 44 Label

It was January 2023, and a big PR agency reached out to invite me to an afterparty for their client, a Berlin-based brand called 44 Label. I’d never heard of them, but I was told the designer was Kobosil, a famous German DJ. Couldn’t name a single one of his songs, but the PR team asked if they could dress me for the event, and I was like, sure, why not? I went to their showroom, which had a very Berlin underground techno vibe, dark, edgy, my personal aesthetic at the time. The pieces looked cool, and Marc Goehring was styling for the brand, so it seemed legit.

The party was cool, classic fashion week afterparty with big budget, big crowd, lots of familiar faces. Models, influencers, fashion people, free drinks, great music, no obvious red flags. Vittoria Ceretti & Mona Tougaard who had shot the campaign posing for pictures in a dark corner of the VIP, various famous techno scene djs milling about. At no point did anyone stop and say, "Wait, are we… accidentally wearing Nazi imagery?"Because why would we? Who assumes that in 2023?

Then a few weeks later, I get a DM from a friend in Berlin.

“Hey… do you realize what you were wearing?”

Huh??

They send me a screenshot of myself from the party. I stare at the image, trying to figure out what I’m missing. My outfit looks normal, black, minimal, nothing crazy. But then they send another message.

“That ‘44’ on your shirt? That’s a Neo-Nazi number.”

I feel my stomach drop.

“There’s a whole Nazi group in Germany called Wolfsbrigade 44, they openly pledge allegiance to Hitler.”

I freeze. I scroll back up to the photo, my eyes locked on the “44” like it’s about to move.

“And those two slashes? Those are SS runes.”

At this point, I am fucking gagged. Like jaw-on-the-floor, phone-slipping-out-of-my-hand, staring-into-the-abyss-level shook. I immediately start Googling, thinking maybe this is all some weird coincidence. Surely, it’s just a branding misstep, right?

Wrong.

First thing I pull up? Wolfsbrigade 44, a Neo-Nazi paramilitary group in Germany, banned in 2020 for being too extreme.

Then, I dig deeper and find out that the “44” references the Schutzstaffel (SS), as in, the actual Nazi paramilitary force. And it’s not just some obscure, random thing. That their symbol was the lightning bolts…. which you can see intertwined into the 44 Label logo.

44 Label Shirt

I keep scrolling. Adidas had to ban people from printing “44” on German football jerseys because of its Nazi connotations.

The final gut punch? The DJ behind the brand, Kobosil, is allegedly banned from Berghain. Alarm bells are going off in my head.

And the thing is, this didn’t just slip past people. A major PR agency was behind this. A whole team of industry insiders were dressing people in this brand, no one asked questions, and none of us bothered to do a basic Google search. And the brand? They knew exactly what they were doing. They relied on our ignorance and got some of the biggest names in fashion and techno to unknowingly co-sign their imagery.

And it worked.

Amelie Lens and Anyma at 44 Label

But the thing is, we can’t afford to be ignorant right now. This kind of thing isn’t just happening on the fringes anymore. Nazi imagery is being mainstreamed in real time, and people are eating it up. Twitter has become a cesspool of white supremacist rhetoric, amplified by a Sig Heiling Elon Musk himself. Kanye West fans are literally buying swastika t-shirts. Right-wing influencers are wearing “ironic” Nazi symbols and calling it “post-woke” fashion.The rise of “trad wife” fashion. All a deliberate attempt to repackage white supremacy as edgy, rebellious, and aesthetically appealing.

Fashion has always been susceptible to this. There’s a long history of the industry pushing controversial, Nazi-adjacent imagery. Remember Zara’s Holocaust pajamas or the swastika purse? More recently, the EUIPO declared the “BOY LONDON” trademark invalid, citing its resemblance to Nazi symbolism and ruling it contrary to public morality. The logo featured an eagle perched on the letter "O" in "BOY," which many perceived as a nod to the Nazi “Parteiadler” emblem, despite the absence of a swastika. This is the same playbook that’s been played out time and time again:

1. Do something wildly inappropriate but “edgy.”

2. Pretend to be shocked and innocent when people call it out.

3. Ride the controversy wave for engagement.

And the worst part? It works. Too many people either don’t notice, don’t care, or assume it doesn’t matter. That’s exactly how fascism seeps into the mainstream…..by normalizing it.

I’m a journalist. I should’ve known better. If I had taken 30 seconds to Google "44 Label meaning," I would’ve seen the red flags immediately. A simple search on Reddit, where I’m always lurking, would’ve exposed it. But I didn’t. And neither did anyone else in that room. And that’s how easy it is to get caught up in something insidious.

And when I posted about it on Twitter a few weeks ago, everyone called me an idiot. They said it was obvious, that I should have seen the warning signs. To “Read less Vogue and more history books”. And honestly? TEA

It’s not just about doing your research when it’s convenient though; in today’s digital age, it’s about being aware of the implications of everything you touch, wear, promote, and discuss.

Doing your due diligence isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a constant, ongoing process. Whether it’s researching the meaning behind the clothes you wear, the history of the brands you support, or the subtle cultural cues woven into designs and marketing campaigns, you can’t afford to ignore the details anymore. You need to be as vigilant in checking the cultural and political context of your fashion choices as you are when diving into the backstory of a trending video or the latest celebrity drama. It’s no longer enough to trust the narratives presented by PR agencies, stylists, or TikTok “experts.”

So now, I do my due diligence on every front. Nothing humbles you faster than realizing you were accidentally a walking Neo-Nazi billboard. And in 2025, when white supremacy is getting rebranded by right-wing podcasts and marketed as counterculture, we can’t afford to be this naïve.

Fashion people, for god's sake… start Googling.