When I was eight years old, I wished that I lived in the Crewcuts store. It seemed like the perfect set up to me. I could wake up just before the store opened, pick my outfit from the endless options of bedazzled clip-on bow ties, bubble skirts, and Jack Purcell sneakers, and then head off to school dressed like a mini girl version of Hamish Bowles. Every little kid I’m sure had a similar fantasy. No? Just me? Well, regardless, it is an important thing for every aspiring fashionista to have – their very first brand obsession. Back then, my fascination could really only be actualized through my mother. I would beg her endlessly to buy me the little denim vest or t-shirt with orange sequin stars that changes color when you graze your hand across it. Only when they went on sale would she ever actually consider it, and if and when she decided to place the order, it felt like I could die right there because I was so happy.
Of course, as the years went on my taste evolved (little did I know J.Crew would re-enter my life as a twenty-one-year-old discovering Jenna Lyons) and I moved on to bigger and better things. One day in sixth grade, I had a friend's birthday party and was in need of a gift for her. So, my mother and I went to the new three floor store that opened on 72nd and Broadway called Urban Outfitters. I had no idea what it was – I had just heard rumblings about it on Tumblr and thought I would give it a shot. When we walked past those double doors plastered with posters of girls clutching polaroid cameras as if their lives depended on it, I knew my life was about to change. And it sure did. Per usual, I forgot that I was actually shopping for a friend and not for me, and quickly got lost in the rows of band t-shirts, crocheted bikini tops, and jeans torn to shreds. Soon I started pocketing the leftover cash my parents would give me for groceries, movie tickets, and metrocards and I would save up to buy oversized sweaters and eventually one day, the holy grail itself, a polaroid camera.
It was fitting for the time that I was a girl obsessed with hipster wonderland. And don’t lie, I know you were too. We all were. This was a store that entered just when we all started to get the first tastes of independence and it was just what we needed to fuel the beginnings of our too cool for school, Arctic Monkeys listening, little spirits. I don’t mean to speak for my generation or anything, but it was the first vehicle for us to start figuring out who we were via the way we presented ourselves. I loved that I could wear bell-bottoms, a Queen shirt, and a flannel over it and everyone knew that I was cool because I showed that I listened to old music! This pattern of making an impression through my Urban ensemble stayed with me for so long that even in freshman year of highschool, I decided to post a (now archived) picture of myself in the dressing room of an Urban in Brooklyn of all places, wearing clothes I did not even end up purchasing. All just to show everyone what I was made of (a Coca-Cola cropped t-shirt with a gray mesh long sleeve underneath, apparently).
I don’t mean to give Urban Outfitters too much credit, every generation has a store that represents their blossoming years of adolescent identities. Hot Topic, Juicy Couture, Roxy, Supreme (THE NINETIES VERSION), to name a few. Urban Outfitters just happened to be ours. And now, we may look back at our archived Instagram posts trying not to gag, but, honestly it is pretty beautiful to think about what so many people and I chose to represent us at such an impressionable age. We all go through phases, and as horrendous as they may be, they are what lead to where we are today. Maybe Urban Outfitters was the end of some people’s clothing obsession, but for me, it was my first real gateway drug to fashion that I actually had all on my own. I didn’t have to go through anyone like I did with my mother and Crewcuts. In fact, my mother begged me to stop shopping at Urban, but there was nothing she could do about it because I was of the age where I could start to make my own decisions about what clothes I purchased. And if Urban was what I chose, then that is pretty huge. Now, when I run into one of their stores because I need a kitschy flask or an on-sale bikini, I have to shield my eyes from some of the monstrosities that hang on their racks, but without it, I wouldn’t be as into clothing as I am today. And I am so into clothing because it is how I express and define myself, and Urban Outfitters really was my first step into what is now my full-blown addiction to clothes.
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