Sunday, September 21, 2014

Store Keeps Up With Bad Times

Last week, Urban Outfitters displayed a "vintage Kent State sweatshirt" with holes, tears, and what seems to be fake blood stains for sale. After facing an alarming amount of controversy, the store pulled the sweatshirt from the rack. It later showed up on eBay for over $500.  Earlier this year, the store pulled another shirt- one with the words "eat less" in large lettering across the front- off the racks as well. It seems to me as though Urban Outfitters is "keeping up with the times" in all the wrong ways.

Society should be working to fix these issues- eating disorders, violence, etc. Stores should not be using them as a way to make money. Similarly, buyers should be wearing clothes that represent a better America- perhaps a shirt that reads "You Are Beautiful" would have been better. As a culture and within our communities, we need to work to respect others and fix our society's issues, not turn

Urban Outfitter's Kent State Sweatshirt 
them into jokes and ways to make money. Urban Outfitters took both items off their racks and later apologized for any controversy, though the damage had already been done.

Urban Outfitter's "Eat Less" T-shirt

3 comments:

  1. Ellie-
    I completely agree with you! I had no idea Urban Outfitters released these two products, and I am shocked they did. Urban Outfitters has become such a big company, so it is surprising that no one from the company stopped these products from being released. These two shirts promote two issues that are so prominent in our society, and instead of preventing them, they are raising attention toward them. It is interesting how fashion these days is becoming so controversial. We read in "The Soiling of Old Glory" how wearing shirts with an American Flag print can be seen as disrespectful, but to me, what Urban Outfitters is doing is far worse. There is nothing positive that can come off of wearing tops like those, and Urban Outfitters should not be making a profit off issues in our world.

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  2. Ellie:

    I as well agree with you! Urban Outfitters should not be making profit by selling items that have to deal with controversial issues. It makes us assume that they think controversial issues are jokes even though they are a very serious matter. I feel like they should not be earning profit from making fun of controversial issues. However, this also makes me think about if there was an ulterior motive to bring awareness to the issues. Perhaps they did not think it was a joke. A good percent of our generation does not pay attention to the news and perhaps the marketing team at Urban Outfitters wanted to raise awareness about school shootings and eating disorders so people will react to the products and remember how horrible and important these issues are. But again, I do not know for sure if that was going through the minds of Urban Outfitters' creative directors when making these decisions, but you never know their motives.

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  3. Ellie-

    I also agree with you! I can't believe that one of my favorite stores was trying to make profit off of clothing like that. Urban has always been somewhat controversial with some of the things they sell but not to this level. I really don't understand what made them think that it was okay to put a shirt that said "Eat Less" on their racks. I also hope that no one went and bought either of the two items mentioned. I hope that Urban Outfitters has learned from this mistake and that they won't do anything like this again.

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