Problematic Fashion: Let’s talk about Urban Outfitters

If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably have read my piece on problematic fashion.

If you haven’t here’s a link where you can check it out: Fat Shaming Fashion Disaster?

Anyways, I wanted to revisit this topic of “Problematic Fashion” because let’s face it, sometimes clothing companies market some pretty tasteless products- and no one really talks about it.

I, however, think it’s something we need to be talking about, for several reasons:

 

Clothing companies market young children

 

What I’m about to show you isn’t exclusively marketed towards adults. Although most of these items have been pulled since they raised controversies…when they were being sold they were marketed across all their social media platforms, showcased in their stores, etc.

Children in our current generation are having more access to the internet, therefore being able to see the problematic messages expressed on the clothing items, and being exposed to it at such a young age.

 

It’s not “trendy” to be problematic

 

Urban Outfitter’s markets items that are trendy, usually gaining inspiration from earlier eras(like their tendency to bring backdated fashion trends like the “mom jeans”) What’s not “trendy” is romanticizing disorders, mocking stereotypes, etc. Here are just a few items that Urban Outfitters has marketed throughout the years.

 

The Kent State Sweatshirt

 

If you follow the link above, you’ll see a pink “Kent State” sweatshirt which upon first glance seems harmless. Looking at the sweatshirt closely, however, you’ll notice the bloodstains surrounding the text. Kent State suffered from a massacre in 1979, so obviously, the release recieved criticism. Urban Outfitters claimed  the “holes” and “red spots” were not intended to upset anyone and was just apart of the design. Kent State University  released a statement expressing their distaste for the collection.

The Depression Shirt

 

Mental Illness is something that many people struggle with and is something that most people do not take being mocked lightly. Urban Outfitters released a slightly cropped shirt that you can see by clicking the link above. It features the word “depression” written plastered over the entire shirt as if it was the name of a band or some sort of hobby. Usually, we see slogan tees like this feature words like “Dance” or “Music”…not the name of a mental illness thousands of people in our society struggle with on a daily basis.

Here are some tweets I found after the release:

 

Both tweets also feature the “eat less” shirt, another problematic release, promoting the eating disorder anorexia.

These are only a couple examples of the problematic materials that Urban Outfitters have released, and I encourage you to do some research after you read this post.

These products will continue to be sold and sadly, people will still buy them. Urban Outfitter’s is one of the most popular retailers for young adults and thousands of people purchase their clothing every day.

 

So what can we do about this?

 

Well, we can start paying attention to what we see being advertised on the internet and start talking about it. We can talk to our friends, our family members, maybe even the people who *cough cough* make the decisions to market these items?

What do you think of problematic fashion? Do you think it’s something we need to pay more attention to? Let me know in the comments!