Urban Outfitters sells clothing and housewares to the teens-to-30s demographic. Often, the strategy to appeal to younger consumers plays up "independence" as at Hollister and Abecrombie & Fitch. Urban Outfitters follows this route, but with an interesting twist. Typically, when a designer wants to talk about being modern in an urban landscape, he or she will go for the converted warehouse loft look - exposed brick, wooden floor, maybe even exposed HVAC unites and pipes. Urban Outfitters tries a riskier direction with what might be described as the "unfinished basement" look - exposed 2-by-4s, plywood and pegboard, bad wallpaper. It's the raw look of a converted loft without any of the personality. The loft look is about inserting life into the city. The basement look is about an apathy towards living environment. And that fits with much of the clothing which focuses on retro, ironic, or kitschy words and images that provoke, but don't really convey any meaning.
