URBAN OUTFITTERS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES

Oh come on Urban Outfitters, are you serious? Really?  Your newest holiday "limited edition" sweater for young women proudly features a red mitten strategically placed over each breast...as though Santa himself is molesting my teenage daughter.  What's wrong with this picture?

My good friend Maryann emailed me the pic last night and told me how lucky I am that my daughters aren't teenagers anymore. I am not normally the grinch who stole Christmas, but this is just wrong. 

Urban Outfitters is a well-known and successful retailer that markets itself to "young women and men" and there's the rub as far as I'm concerned.  Anyone who has ever had the unmitigated joy of parenting a teenage girl knows that if it lives in Urban Outfitters, teens WILL find it hip, clever and fun.

On the Urban Outfitters website right now, nearly 100 customers find this trashy cardigan "adorable".  Oh please, there is nothing adorable about this. I think the customer who described it as "mitten-tits" is closer to the truth and that this particular customer is of the male persuasion.  Ya think?  That my friends, really makes my point.

I'm not a side-splitting yuckster but I like to think that I have a decent sense of humor.  And the concept for the sweater could be mildly amusing, in the right place.  But what contemporary and reasonable adult women do NOT find funny or adorable is that this is being showcased in stores that specifically target young women.  YOUNG women.  Extremely impressionable 10 - 14 year olds who already think that their parents are incredibly uncool will clamor for this sweater, put it on their girlish Christmas lists, or god-forbid ask their pubescent boyfriends to purchase it.  Ugh.

I don't normally use the word objectify, although it might be perfectly suited for this bit of Christmas finery.  The message is wrong for this audience.  Young women ought to be delighting in themselves and developing a sense of respect for their own bodies.  And young men should be learning what respect means when it is applied to girls.  Mittens on breasts is not any of these things.

Funny thing, Urban Outfitters is smarter than this.  Ten days ago CEO Glen Senk reported record earnings for the third quarter and a solid 19% operating margin. (http:money.cnn.com/news/newfeeds/articles/globenewswire/178234.htm) and they can't be running such a successful company by making many amatuerish mistakes.  But this $78 "Grey Antics Mrs.Claus Sweater" limited edition cardigan is exactly that.  Oh sure the sweaters may sell, they may even sell out, but that doesn't change the fact that this design should be outlawed in my house and yours.

The solution of course is crystal clear:  vote with your pocketbook, because that's where the rubber meets the road. Let's just say no to such a poorly conceived piece of clothing. Don't buy it, don't laugh at it, and don't let your daughters wear it.  We don't have to go nuts and picket Urban Outfitters - because between crazy jobs, prepping the Thanksgiving bird and readying for Black Friday battle, who has the time or the energy?  Just say no, as simple as that.

Although now I have a picture in my head of middle-aged moms with real mittens pinned to their matronly bossoms, proudly marching on malls across America holding signs that read:
MOTHERS AGAINST MITTENS and  DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW WHERE YOU PUT THOSE HANDS?

Lemme know if you and your sign decide to take a stand.