The reasons we won't be shopping at Urban Outfitters anymore

It's quite unfortunate to me that many of my favorite clothing stores have been apparently giving money to anti-gay campaigners. I'm questioning the political standpoint of these companies, but one stands out in particular for not playing their cards right: Urban Outfitters, whose chairman, "regularly supports anti-gay legislation and GOP candidates who vote against gay rights," according to www.queerty.com's list of 10 anti-gay companies to boycott. Due to this, a boycott has apparently been going on for four years, and Urban lost 50% of their stock. Urban Outfitters was also recently sued by the Navajo tribe on copyright grounds for using the name of the tribe as a label for all of their "Native American" and "tribal" prints.

This is disappointing to me, because Urban Outfitters is a store whose main demographic seems to be young liberals, who tend to be forward-thinking and NOT HOMOPHOBIC. That's a big shame because having your chairman endorse anti-gay efforts is quite the opposite of appealing to that little aforementioned main demographic which it would be wise to appeal to if you want to make money, seeing as you are a business.

The fact that they would even feel the need to become so publicly political, regardless of whether the standpoint is favored by the main clientele, is beyond me. Usually, if anything political, retail stores donate to an inoffensive, philanthropic cause, not one that preserves the so-called sanctity of a type of marriage that obviously will always have nothing to do with being gay itself (as in, people can stop worrying that it'll be too gay to let gay people marry each other because, at least in my opinion, it honestly has no effect on the sanctity of their own marriages). But I've already realized that Urban Outfitters hasn't really thought things through lately.

A few months ago, I read a link about Urban Outfitters actually knocking off an etsy designer of the line Tru.che, Stevie K's signature creation. She described this line of necklaces which they copied almost exactly as "one of the reasons that I was able to quit my full-time job." They've since taken the state-shaped exact replicas of Stevie's necklaces off the racks, but no one can deny that that was a bad move in the first place.

Faking designs is dumb when a small company copies a bigger one, but it's especially NOT COOL when a large company completely knocks off a self-employed, small-scale artist. Not only are fakes illegal, they show a lack of originality and don't do anything good for anyone in the long run.I may not know enough about this, but I'm pretty sure it would have been more helpful for both Urban Outfitters and Tru.che if they had just offered to sell her designs in their retail environment. At that point, it would have probably been an honor to be sold there.

But not only did they steal this design and the item name, they've also stolen from plenty of other artists, as you can see here. These are the reasons we are boycotting Urban Outfitters, and invite you to peacefully not shop there either, if you agree with what I've said.

By Ratmona, Edited by Ge=ugge=tte

A Note From The Editor:
Yeah! So there Urbanian Outfitters! We don't like you anymore. So ha! Ha! HA hah hah! And also, their last catalog was atrocious, in case you read that idiocy. Really! A t-shirt with the sleeves cut off for $50! They looked ridiculous and not at all put together! I have no respect for them! None at all! Hurumph!