Are urban outfitters fast fashion?
Yes, Urban Outfitters is a fast fashion brand.
URBN is a conglomerate of fashion businesses that includes Anthropologie, BHLDN, Free People, fashion rental firm Nuuly, outdoor lifestyle brand Terrain, and restaurant concept brand Menus & Venues.
Urban Outfitters is a fast fashion business since it makes and sells many apparel lines every year. Furthermore, the firm refuses to reveal any information about its supplier network. Despite having one of the most gleaming corporate websites I’ve ever seen, URBN gives no information about where their garments are from.
Instead, they concentrate on micro-campaigns centered on local communities and charity. This is set against a backdrop of anti-racist messaging: ‘We support and stand with the Black community, and we know that we must all do more than we have done thus far.’
Meanwhile, they have ceased paying their clothing factories, using covid-19 as a justification, causing harm to the employment, health, and well-being of many people of color.
Is Urban Outfitters sustainable?
Urban Outfitters says it has a “reuse and recycle” approach that’s determined in its shops as properly as its products’ packaging. It additionally claims that its distribution centre has one of the greatest rooftop photo voltaic arrays for on-site electricity technology in the US.
The manufacturer additionally says it companions with different manufacturers that elevate eco-friendly merchandise such as Hydroflask and Patagonia.
Aside from those, the manufacturer additionally has the Urban Renewal collection, which affords ‘one-of-a-kind’ antique portions as properly as ‘reimagined vintage’ items.
In 2019, the company delivered its condo carrier known as Nuuly. The garb condominium subscription firstly carried solely women’s apparel from one-of-a-kind manufacturers which includes these below URBN (Urban Outfitters, its sister manufacturers Free People and Anthropologie).
The provider improved to catering to men’s and kids’ garb and add-ons via Nuuly Thrift, a resale marketplace. The provider is open now not simply for URBN manufacturers however for anybody who needs to signal up and sell. Sellers will reportedly earn ‘Nuuly Cash’.
Despite all these, however, there is no proof that the company minimises cloth waste at some point of production, in accordance to Good On You. There is additionally reportedly no proof that it is working closer to casting off hazardous chemical compounds from its products.
It’s additionally well worth noting that Urban Outfitters does no longer have a posted sustainability coverage and record that humans can refer to, apart from its ‘Community Cares’ page.
Is Urban Outfitters ethical?
The company scored a measly 11-20% in the Fashion Transparency Index.
And whilst its father or mother agency has a web page committed to the neighborhood betterment efforts the manufacturer (and its sister companies) have made in partnership with non-profit organisations, it’s pretty alarming to study that it doesn’t prolong the identical compassion to its suppliers.
URBN’s provider factories reportedly divulged how the corporation was once ‘finding loopholes now not to pay them’ for orders carried out and in manufacturing at the begin of the pandemic.
Apart from that, there is additionally no proof that Urban Outfitters affords its employees with residing wages.
Read some of Urban Outfitters’ labour insurance policies via the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act here. The corporation itself does now not have a posted labour policy.