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Buzzfeed reports that at a September 2012 analyst day, the CEO of Urban Outfitters described the namesake store’s customer as the “upscale homeless person…”

Here’s the quote from the article, which also refers to the company’s Anthropologie brand:

“The Urban customer, we always talk about, is the upscale homeless person, who has a slight degree of angst and is probably in the life stage of 18 to 26…The Anthropologie customer is a bit more polished, a bit more older and she has much less angst…”

Sounds like a great idea for a marketing campaign, if by “marketing campaign” you mean “potentially poor choices of words you tell analysts and not your customers.”

The good news is hearing this may create more angst in the company’s customers, leading to greater angst-driven sales based on their apparent business model!

3 Questions That Arise From This Story

1. If the hipsters shopping at Urban Outfitters are “upscale homeless” people, what are the hipsters who shop at “American Apparel?” “Upscale” isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind based on some of the scantily clad models we’ve seen in American Apparel ads. Are “fluorescent” or “neon” adjectives? We hope so, because those are the first words we’re thinking of.

2. Is there a lesson here suggesting that spending too much on clothing might make you homeless?

3. Which kind of jeans best convey “angst?” We’ll vote skinny jeans since putting on tight jeans seems more likely to put people in a bad mood than looser denim.

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Categories: Humor