Urban Outfitters – how you sicken me (phony Clashmania)
Usually when I rant I think it’s so I feel a bit better, and this is probably no exception. I hate chain restaurants, chain stores, chain link fencing….you name it. While living in the States has it’s many perks the proliferation of Chain everything is tiresome at best and dehumanising at worst. Once you hit the suburbs of most cities you could be in Austin or Atlanta, Des Moines or Dallas, it all starts to look pretty much the same and I blame this blandness primarily on retail (and food) giants. I know the same is happening in the UK and elsewhere but it’s just offensive.
All that said it’d be no great shock to learn I disliked a chain called Urban Outfitters before seeing the photo that is to follow. UrbanO is one of those places that might be appealing if you’d been living in a village in the Orkney Islands and only had a choice of green cardigans or yellow up until now. If however you owned a mirror and wanted to dress in a fashion that befitted your own sense of style I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s clothing that tries too hard to be cutting edge and ultimately ends up somewhere else. Check this and you’ll see what I mean, it’s as if the Jam decided to make knock off mod gear for Lithuania, and I’m referring to the former Soviet satellite around 1978 not today. Now, check the newest urban chic for your black modern shelf below -
Phony Clashmania
All of this is forgivable until I saw this photo. It (the wood) is being sold as an ALBUM FRAME ?? Not only is it daft, and a bit pricey (2 for $20 it looks) but since when did the London Calling cover sit with Lava Lamps and those lovely vases filled with coloured stones as some sort of fashion statment for your loft in the bay area? If I’m paying for an album sleeve glued onto a piece of wood it better either contain both pieces of associated black vinyl or at least the legacy edition of London Calling. Safe to say that CBS/Sony aren’t making any cash on this so short of there being a collection box for Strummerville on the counter this still screams total bollocks. Times are hard for retailers right now and sentiment always helps an impulse buyer open his wallet. How about you try something really urban like promote independent clothing designers?
Now it’s possible that this was just in one store and could be a shop workers little private tribute to The Clash. That could be….in which case I’ll take back some of what I said. No that’s not true I won’t. However, I fear it’s more likely that head office printed up a few hundred of these and they went out with the promo flyers for their nice Jam reject cardigans. That’s my thought finished, bloody hope Joe Strummer doesn’t hear about this one!
Tim
From what I can remember of the last time I visited a UO, that plywood is part of their store displays. (It looks as funny as it sounds–charging about $75 for a pair of Levi’s and tossing them on crude plywood tables.) The album frames are, I think, square picture-frame things. They don’t come with the album covers, either; you have to supply your own. Though, I agree that they are using the London Calling cover as a prop for the frames/turntables/record paraphernalia. On their website, they have it pictured with a Crosley USB turntable.
I guess it is inevitable that The Clash, like many bands before them, would be co-opted by a sort of homogenized “hipster” outfitter. (And maybe any publicity is good publicity.) However, as a young person, I will say it’s a shame if it might cause them to become inextricably linked in this generation, or anyone’s, mind. The Clash are so much more than snazzy apartment decor.