Urban Outfitter Controversial Clothing

By: KAYLA MADSEN

In September 2014 Urban Outfitters came under fire for selling a red Kent State sweatshirt with faux bloodstains splattered all over reminded of the 1970 tragedy.

 

The sweatshirt was widely referenced to 1970’s Kent State massacre, in which four unarmed students were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard during a Vietnam War protest.

“It was never our intention to allude to the tragic events that took place at Kent State in 1970,” Urban Outfitters said in a statement.

Pro-Booze Shirts

 

Anti- drinking advocates were incensed at a line of alcohol-related T-shirts being hawked by the retailer and modeled by apparently under-21 female models, just in time for back-to-school shopping. The T-shirt slogans — “I Vote for Vodka,” “Misery Loves Alcohol,” “I Drink You’re Cute,” “USA Drinking Team.”

The Holocaust-evoking “Jewish Star” Shirt

 

Urban Outfitters put itself in the bad graces of Jewish groups in April 2012, after selling a T-shirt with a six-pointed star badge that, to some eyes, looks eerily like the Star of David patch Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany, leading up to and during the Holocaust.

Pulling Gay Marriage T-Shirts

 

In late 2008, in the heat of California’s vote on gay-marriage-killing Proposition 8, Urban Outfitters started selling a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “I Support Same-Sex Marriage” then pulled it from shelves and the web less than a week later, with a buyer blaming “too much bad press.”

The “Eat Less” T-shirt

 

Urban Outfitters tried to sell a V-neck T-shirt with the words “Eat Less” on it, displayed on a “rail-thin brunette model in a hiked-up miniskirt,” said Ryan Halliday at FOX Boston. There were enough of those people that, after a backlash, the shirt was pulled from Urban Outfitters’ website in June 2010.

These are a few of the controversial clothing pieces that Urban Outfitters have sold throughout the years. Urban Outfitters had record quarterly sales of $811 million. The company may be forced to save face and apologize for their controversial T-shirts on Twitter, but it’s clearly not hurting their business.