Student Buys T-Shirt at
Urban Outfitters, Now Too Self-Conscious to Wear It
by Jack Kukoda '02
NEW HAVEN - A recent trip
to Urban Outfitters ended in tragedy Monday for Josh Blakely, CC ‘03. "When I
first went into Urban, I was really excited," said Josh. "The clothes there
reminded me of the funky styles I saw in New York City's East Village when I
interned for Goldman Sachs last summer. I figured that if I bought some clothes
there people would think I was an authentic tragically hip bohemian guy." Boy,
was he wrong.
Urban Outfitters arrived with great fanfare at Yale last spring, boasting a
wide variety of items including clothing, stylish lightbulbs, and chrome martini
shakers. Their merchandise runs the gamut from modern to kitsch to retro, styles
that Gen-Xers adore.
Blakely reportedly entered the store at approximately 12:30 PM on Wednesday,
"right before my Intro to Film Studies class." After twenty minutes of browsing,
Josh settled on a blue t-shirt featuring a picture of Al Pacino surrounded by
mountains of cocaine from Scarface and the slogan "Rehab is for
quitters."
"When I saw the shirt, I was like, 'Wow! This is awesome. A totally ironic
t-shirt that gives the impression that I'm into hard drugs, which makes me cool,
without the negative side effects of taking hard drugs, which would probably
cause me to fail out of college!' Also, it looked just like a shirt I saw this
guy wearing on St. Mark's Place." Blakely added, "I was sure my classmates in
intro film would love it, but I rushed home to show my roommates first. I just
knew they would think it was one of a kind and bad-ass." But Josh couldn’t have
been more wrong.
Blakely said that he practically sprinted back to his dorm room and burst
through the door in excitement. "I told them that I had something that would
blow their minds as I pulled the t-shirt from the bag. When I showed it to my
roommate Dustin, he was like, 'Oh yeah, I saw that at Urban the other day. It's
pretty cool, I guess.' I chalked up Dustin's lack of excitement to the fact that
he's from Texas and probably can't appreciate anything that’s actually cool. I
figured my film class friends would like it, so I put it on and headed to
class," Blakely explained.
When Blakely arrived at class, "things just got worse," he said. "I guess I
wanted attention, otherwise I wouldn’t have worn such an eye- catching shirt,
but it wasn't the kind of attention that I was hoping for. When kids saw my
shirt, half of them kind of rolled their eyes and the other half sighed. Then
the kid sitting next to me said that he had bought the same shirt over the
summer."
Other students have described similar Urban-related experiences. Linda
Seaverton, SM '02 said she knows exactly how Josh feels. "The other day I went
into Urban Outfitters and bought these awesome pre-faded Diesel Jeans and a top
that says ‘Boys Lie,’" Seaverton said. "I wore them to a party the next weekend
only to find two girls wearing the same jeans and another wearing the same top,
albeit in a different color. And to make it worse, those girls had much better
boobs than me. I felt like a fucking loser. Like a fucking, worthless loser."
Shelley Walkerman, assistant manager at the Broadway Urban Outfitters, denied
any wrongdoing on the part of her store. "Urban Outfitters cannot help it if our
irony-soaked apparel and retro furniture is easily identified as a co-opted
version of urban chic," Walkerman said. "That simply means we have great brand
recognition."
Blakely says that he still shudders whenever he thinks of his horrific
experience. "That shirt is just sitting at the bottom of my closet," he said. "I
can't imagine ever wearing it again." When asked if he would shop at Urban
Outfitters in the future, Blakely shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I did
see this cool inflatable picture frame and this kind of glam/funky ashtray in
their window the other day. I don't smoke, but I think it would look pretty
sweet in my dorm room anyway." |
