Dear Urban Outfitters, Shlocky Much?

To begin, shlocky is not a word people use often, I happen to be addicted to it. It is a Yiddish slang word meaning of poor quality. I tend to use it to mean anything I dislike or find ugly. I wanted to get that out of the way so you at least catch the tone of this post before I keep going.

I have always liked Urban Outfitters very much. I love their decor and jewelry most, but their clothes are often cute as well. The only issue with them is when I pick something up at a store, I often look at the price tag first. I like to buy a lot of items for a cheaper price rather than a few more expensive things. I'm a quantity girl, what can I say. Well, before I look at that price tag, I also like to determine what I would pay for that item. By now this is a two second, automatic process, but I remember a time I would stand at the rack for a minute or two debating. The issue I often have with Urban Outfitters is my concept of an acceptable price is never theirs. So, more often than not I leave Urban Outfitters with nothing.

Recently, I am finding that I am leaving that store for a whole other reason. What the heck happened to their clothing? Wowsa, it is awful. I have no problem with the style of dress often associated with the hipster. I tend to like more unique clothing, so I can identify with their style choices on occasion. I don't exactly love what their movement stands for, but that is a story for another day and most likely on another blog. The clothing I believe they carry at Urban Outfitters, a chain store mind you, is moving closer and closer toward the hipster style. It makes no sense to me because hipsters like to shop at thrift stores mostly, but Urban Outfitters seems to want to capitalize on this. The problem with that concept is that the clothing isn't thrift store cheap, so they are selling vintage-looking clothing for the price of everything else these days. It totally goes against what the hipster would want to be doing. So, I ask you this? Who is shopping there? Poser Hipsters? I can't figure it out. I guess I can't say the whole store is ridiculous, there are still some things that got a second glance, but mostly I felt I was looking at vintage escort apparel. Between velvet square tops and the acid washed high-wasted shorts, I felt like I was shopping in the 80s in a bad way.

I don't know, perhaps that is just one more store I must check off of my list. Kind of sad really. Maybe next season they will come back to the land of the sensible.