Urban Outfitters: myths surround successful retailer

Urban Outfitters has come to London, Ontario. According to the local paper, this is "the first store it has opened west of Toronto." It isn't. There are already outlets in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, and I expect there will be a lot more both east and west of Toronto in the near future. UO is in expansion mode, opening 21 new stores in 2011 and an additional 16 in 2012.

The Philadelphia-based retailer does not "shun malls"; This is a myth. Richard Hayne, the brilliant businessman behind Urban Outfitters, realized years ago that placing stores only in downtowns or urban areas was a dead end approach. He branched out into enclosed malls and lifestyle shopping centers, ensuring that his stores attracted the target market -- those between 18 and 30.

Once ubiquitous; Now, gone.

If you don't agree that Hayne is a brilliant business man. Consider this: He has kept a retail operation going for 43 years. This is no  small feat. Selling stuff, at least selling lots and lots of stuff year after year, decade after decade, is hard. Think of all the chains that once rode the crest of popularity only to fall, fail and fade: Tabi International, Au Coton, Beaver Canoe, Cotton Ginny . . .

Hayne got into retail with his first wife Judy Wicks in 1970, opening the Free People's Store near the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. A pair of  old-fashioned men's long johns hung on the front door and during store hours the rear flap would be unbuttoned to display a sign reading "OPEN."

Despite what one often reads, Hayne was not hippie retailer. Reporter Jonathan Valania makes this clear in a story he wrote for Philadelphia Weekly: Clothes Make the Man.  In those early years, Hayne had long hair and he was against the war in Vietnam, but at that time who didn't and who wasn't? He was simply in tune with the era.

As the era ended and the tune changed, so did Hayne and his store -- it was now his store as he and his wife had separated in '71. Free People's Store became Urban Outfitters, stocked with an eclectic mix of merchandise for the chic, young urbanite. Urban Outfitters, under the guidance of Hayne, sold more than just stuff, it sold "cool." But, sometimes selling cool buys problems.

(Zach Klein - courtesy Zach Klein, Flickr)

• The Anti-Defamation League got its dander up in 2005 over a T-shirt sold by Urban Outfitters that said "New Mexico, cleaner than regular Mexico."
• The Navajo Nation sued for trademark infringement after the company sold items labeled as “Navajo,” suggesting the merchandise was made by the tribe when it was not. Under the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, making such a false claim is illegal.
• At various times the company has angered the Jewish community, gays and the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America. The Irish group protested a T-shirt saying, "Kiss me. I'm drunk or Irish, or whatever."

UO even managed to offend transgendered folk with a card advertised as "charming" containing the word "tranny." A slang term considered insulting and degrading by the transgendered community.

It isn't always easy being hip. And my guess is the company has had some big failures in the area of cool because at its corporate core it is not cool. It is a business. A successful business.

But don't make the mistake Buzzfeed makes, reporting that Urban Outfitters is run by a bunch of lame old men. Richard Hayne is a senior but he is not lame. His personal politics may be far right, years ago he and his present wife donated money to Rick Santorum, but today he keep his politics and his businesses separate.  Urban Outfitters shows more interest in Twitter, Tumblr, Vimeo, Pinterest, YouTube and the UO Blog than the Republican party and right wing causes.

The London Free Press interviews one young shopper who says, "It's cool, it's trendy and I am just glad I don’t have to go into a mall." --- at least not for the moment.

Let's be honest, Urban Outfitters is not about being cool or being chic but it's about making money. Clearly, UO believes there is more money to be made locating at the far north end of Richmond Row, a location that puts them close to the university crowd.

Despite the claims of the chief executive of Downtown London, the American retailer didn't choose London's core. Nor did it choose one of London's large malls. Yet, for many retailers the malls and big box developments are where the shopping action is in London.

So let's cut to the chase: Urban Outfitters is a global, multi-brand empire encompassing not only Urban Outfitters but Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain Garden Center and BHLDN (a wedding store). It had an increase in annual sales in 2012 of nine percent over the previous year. Since taking back the reins of control in early 2012, the stock under Hayne's leadership has risen 34 percent. 

Will the London store succeed? Maybe. But Urban Outfitters, like other chains, is not adverse to closing a store if the location doesn't deliver. Roots closed their store on Richmond Row. The once popular, locally owned Muskox, selling such iconic brands as Royal Robbins, is gone. The Richmond Row mystic attracted but failed to hold on to these and other stores.

The biggest threat to the future of the London store may simply be the age of  the savvy Richard Hayne. He will not be around to work his retail magic forever.

For an interesting take on what it is like to work, more often than not part-time, for a big chain, read:
A Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift by Steve Greenhouse in The New York Times.

How much value is Facebook?

Newspapers, like The London Free Press, see themselves as riding the crest of change. They have a Facebook page and Twitter account.

Only 16 Likes, two Comments.

Ah, the all important social media. I'll bet the department heads at the paper thought the readers would find the Facebook page indispensable. But I checked a page of pictures posted from the Knights vs. Ottawa 67s game and found only 16 likes and two comments.

I checked a few more photo groupings. The post that did best attracted 26 likes and five comments. Another got nothing, nada, zilch. It got absolutely no likes and not even one comment.

Wow! Those numbers are low. Heck, back in December I did a little shoot at a London school of Irish dance and got 201 hits, 19 likes and six comments. Of course, not being as cool as the LFP, I didn't post to Facebook.

Maybe newspapers would do better if they paid more attention to their core business: news. Maybe Quebecor and Sun Media should consider hiring a few more reporters, photographers and copy editors. (For a story on the loss of copy editors, read Copy editors laid off more than other newsroom staffers in the King's Journalism Review.)

A dedicated online copy editor might cut down on errors like this one found on the Free Press Facebook page: National Ballet School audtions (sic) in London

My photo essay attracted more than two hundred hits.

Some of my online posts have attracted nearly 8000 hits on their own and some months I get more than 5000 hits for just one blog. I've got seven blogs!

I use both Facebook and Twitter but I find Google sends me the most readers. And Google is the gift that keeps on giving.

Since the early '90s, at least, I've wondered if newspapers would profit by forming an alliance with Google. Possibly they should consider making it easier for Google to track all of a newspaper's content. Newspapers should negotiate a deal along the lines of Google Adsense. Everyone would benefit.

Maybe Google could show the papers a trick or two on how to make money on the Net.

Journalists: Frontline historians

Dan Brown, an editor at The London Free Press, recently wrote a piece entitled: Journalists are not wannabe historians.

"Every time I hear someone describe journalism as “the first draft of history,” I shudder inwardly.

It’s not a fair definition of what reporters, photographers, columnists and editors do on a daily basis.

Even worse: It’s kind of insulting to the members of my chosen profession. It suggests all we journalists are is second-rate historians."

Dan Brown is right: Journalists are not automatically historians, not even second-rate ones. Furthermore, a good argument can be made that journalism is not automatically a profession. J-Source, the Canadian Journalism Project, delved into this question last January with an article, "Can journalism be a profession?"

Media law specialist Klaus Pohle, an associate professor at Carleton University, is quoted in the J-Source article: "In our system . . . anybody can be a journalist . . . ." Therefore, he argued, journalism is not a profession.

Personally, I have never been enamored with the job titles of journalist and photojournalist. I have always preferred reporter and photographer. I came to the newspaper business straight from three years of art school. My friend, hired at the small Ontario daily at the same time as I, had recently graduated from university with a BA in English. In later years, my friend became the news editor putting out the front page of a large, important Canadian daily.

But, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Dan Brown's is right. Maybe he is a professional journalist. I assume as a professional journalist, he must report serious infractions of his profession's code of conduct. I'm not sure to whom Mr. Brown reports, nor do I know where to find the universally accepted code of conduct, but I am sure Mr. Brown, as a professional journalist, knows these answers.

While working in the newspaper game, I was often shocked by the stuff that masqueraded as news. For instance, I was totally appalled when the Ottawa Sun hired two young models to pose topless for a news story — the young women took turns playing the topless sunbather role with their bare backs kept modestly towards the camera. I wrote about this in a post, Who's a photojournalist?, that has been hit by journalism students and others from around the globe.

Here are the Ottawa Sun cutlines that accompanied the posed photo, left, run when the paper retrieved the archived image to illustrate another story a year after running the first piece: "Last summer, Lisa Regimbal, left, bear (sic) it all while chatting with Connie Morden." (Yes, bares was spelt incorrectly. And I discovered the names of the young ladies were switched from first publication to second.)

After Mr. Brown gets this breach of journalism ethics dealt with by the profession's ruling body, I hope he gets in touch with me. I'll give him a few more iffy items to look into. He tells us, "I take this [journalism] seriously. As a journalism educator, it’s up to people like me to dispel these myths."

I liked it better when journalists, working closely with talented editors and skilled photographers, were proud to put together a rough draft of history on a daily basis. I don't imagine respected journalist Alan Barth meant to insult Mr. Brown when he used the phrase in a book review appearing in the New Republic in 1943. (Yes, the phrase was coined and popularized by journalists.)

Perhaps, Mr. Brown needs to grow a thicker skin. Maybe, just maybe, he is too easily offended. I have hunch that most in the news business would agree with Jack Shafer writing in Slate:

"What makes 'first rough draft of history' so tuneful, at least to the ears of journalists? Well, it flatters them. Journalists hope that one day a historian will uncover their dusty work and celebrate their genius."

Will those historians also sift through blogger posts?

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Addendum: If Dan Brown takes offence at this post, I'm sorry. Like Mr. Brown, I care deeply about journalism and the direction in which it is headed under the guidance of huge companies like Quebecor, owner of Sun Media and The London Free Press.

Since getting into blogging, I've learned that people working in the media have the thinnest of skins when it comes to criticism. This is not to say that Mr. Brown will take offence, but he might.

If I write a harsh piece on financial advisers, I get well thought out, well reasoned and very polite e-mails. But from reporters I get e-mails banged out using the largest of fonts in the boldest typeface. Reporters often earn their income holding others up to intense examination. Being taken to task in a small, inconsequential blog does not compare to being criticized in a daily newspaper.

The invisible Randy Richmond

London

 
Back in May, 2011, when Randy Richmond of The London Free Press was just beginning his long series examining London, Ontario, the journalist asked: "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an endearing baseball club aside, who wants to be the Cleveland of Canada?"

Detroit

I found the question irritating and illuminating. Cleveland, like Detroit, is a Midwest American city that has been on the decline for half a century or more. It's a sad and an all-too-common tale in the rust belt. Think: Gary, IN, or St. Louis, MO, or London, ON. London hasn't lost population like the U.S. cities but London has lost a great deal of its manufacturing.

It is now early 2013 and Richmond is still cranking out articles in his seemingly endless series examining London. Because of his interest in London and in urban planning I am always amazed when I attend a ReThink London event and notice that Richmond is not there. Heck, it was Randy Richmond who made me aware of the similarities between Cleveland and London -- but London lacks the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'd love to thank Randy for this insight.

Today I came across a little piece posted on The London Fog blog: The Invisible Randy Richmond. I thought of Randy and ReThink London and I smiled.

London

Mixing clip art with journalism

To see the photo and story, click link.

As a former newspaper photographer, I prefer photographer to photojournalist, I am amazed at the clip art masquerading as news photography found in papers today. Surfing the Net, I came upon this example of clip art illustrating an opinion piece published in my local paper.

Why do I prefer photographer? Well, much of my life's work was spent shooting pictures to be shims on a page. I shot visual cliches, medical researchers holding petri dishes in front of their faces.

Today, newspapers no longer even pretend that the photo running with a story actually reflects reality. At least back when I was working we tried to run pictures of real people, often those in the story, even if they were posed doing silly stuff. Now, a clip art photo of two models pretending to be students illustrates an opinion piece on journalism and correctness. The clip art agency is given credit under the photo.

You know, when you really think about it, maybe today's clearly faux news images are more honest than yesterday's.

I find this very sad. For years I ran a photojournalism seminar and brought shooters like Edie Adams to London to speak. Adams was a fine photojournalist and I always hoped that the newspaper editors and photographers attending my seminars would return to their newsrooms invigorated. They didn't. They found the seminars entertaining, not enlightening.

This not to say that all newspaper photographs are phony, they aren't, but too many are and it often makes it impossible to tell the real from the faux. A professional plumber always installs a toilet that functions, a professional electrician always installs a light switch that works but a professional photojournalist cannot make the same claims about his/her photojournalism.

And if you do not find anything wrong with using clip art to illustrate news, using pictures shot well before a story was even a glimmer in an assignment editor's eye. Think about this: the same attitude often colours news stories. Reporters bring back stories from the field that confirm the beliefs that they held long before they were given the assignment. Think "crack babies."

Rethink London: Concrete towers an international style

Cherryhill: a mix of apartment towers, an indoor mall and a commercial complex.

Recently I saw the following Twitter tweet: "A new arrival from Australia points out how much Cherryhill looks like Chernobyl." I was shocked. Cherryhill is a successful residential development in London while Chernobyl is the name of the Soviet era nuclear power plant closed in 1986 after fire followed by an explosion damaged the plant, killed two workers and blew a massive cloud of radioactive debris high into the atmosphere.

Contrary to popular mythology, Pripyat and Chernobyl are completely different cities. (I first learned this while taking pictures for the local paper of children from the region who were visiting London.) Chernobyl is NOT the city built some two to three kilometers from the plant in the late '60s and early '70s to house plant workers. That place is Pripyat. Pripyat is the city that was emptied completely of residents immediately after the nuclear disaster. The place has sat abandoned for 26 years.

While there is a town of Chernobyl, it is about 14km from the nuclear power plant. It had no commercial links to the Soviet power station. The actual town of Chernobyl attracts very little attention. It is just one more little, regional town left almost deserted after the nuclear disaster contaminated the entire region.

Today, a few hundred inhabitants still live in Chernobyl. They post signs in front of their homes saying: "Owner of this house lives here." Finding pictures of the little town, with a recorded history going back to 1193, is almost impossible. I'd post a picture if I could. This link may show an abandoned Chernobyl home. Or go to the bottom of this post. I've posted a link to a few seconds of video shot driving through Chernobyl on the way to Pripyat.

Straight street, overgrown from lack of use, in Pripyat.

The roads in Pripyat grow narrower and narrower every year as grass and weeds encroach on the long straight expanses of pavement. Abandoned for decades, the apartments of the Soviet planned community are now missing windows and doors. Pripyat is often compared to cities in the American rustbelt: Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland . . . Talk about the residential area carelessly known as Chernobyl and you are talking about post-nuclear-disaster Pripyat.

When I objected to the comparison of Chernobyl to Cherryhill, the writer tweeted that he found "the physical resemblance was uncanny." I finally understood. The fellow was talking about the architectural style of the Pripyat buildings. He was confusing the name of the power station with the name of the community.

Photo of Pripyat swimming pool structure by Timm Suess

The writer voiced surprise that buildings almost on opposite sides of the world would resemble each other. "Uncanny," the writer wrote.

I agree with the writer, except for the uncanny bit. The apartment towers in Pripyat do share a look with the apartment towers in London, Ontario — as well as with towers in Paris, New York, Vancouver, Calgary, Tokyo, Nairobi and thousands of other cities and towns around the globe.

The resemblance isn't uncanny, it's expected. The large, concrete slab towers, built all over the world, all exhibit some adherence to the international modernist style.

What is the international modernist style. This is what Emily Tyrer of Wesleyan University wrote:

The International Modernist Style developed out of a search for a building style unique to and expressive of the modern world. Modernist architects’ work expressed the technology, materials and functions that were new to the twentieth century. The resulting architecture was thought to be inevitable: based on function, technology and the spirit of the times. 

It adhered to the American architect, Louis Sullivan’s dictum, “Form follows function.” The style is characterized by architecture stripped of extraneous ornament, historical references and traditional symbolism. It demanded amnesia relative to history. 

The Modernist style was considered a mark of high morality; historical types and styles were “a lie,” in Le Corbusier’s words, and ornament was a “crime,” according to Adolf Loos. Instead of incorporating ornament or using historical typologies, they attempted to give aesthetic value to functionalism. The naked function and bones of its structure would be the final form. 

Mies van der Rohe’s famous phrase, “Less is more” represented the minimal ideal of Modernist architects and their buildings. They aimed for purity: sheerness, flatness, and smoothness. They aimed for a new style that could be relevant universally, based on inevitable, scientific facts of construction and human behavior.

If you got here because of an interest in ReThink London, you should follow the following link and read: tower renewal project: plasticity revisited by Graeme Stewart. Stewart writes:

The modernist concrete slab or tower in the park type apartment building, “is perhaps the most successful typology of the modern movement”. . . . this opinion reflects the remarkably global scope of the implementation of the ubiquitous modern tower. From Soviet mass housing, European post-war reconstruction, North American urban renewal, the utopias of Brasilia and Chandigarh, and Hong Kong’s super-blocks, this modernist machine for living is truly a global type, and has largely filled its mandate of providing well serviced and equitable housing for tens of millions of people.

One last thought: the 140 character limit imposed by Twitter, can limit thoughtful discussion.

Looking for a Chernobyl (Pripyat) look-a-like, look to the American rust belt.

Known as the Brewster-Douglass Project in Detroit, the straight roads, overgrown vegetation and abandoned apartment towers really do resemble the look of neighbourhoods in the former Chernobyl Territory of the old Soviet Union.

Why the projects in so many American cities failed while developments like Cherryhill in London, Ontario, succeeded is the really important question urban planners must answer. (If you are going to try finding the answer, google Sam Katz as a start. Sam Katz is a big reason for the success of Cherryhill and I may post more on Sam Katz soon.)

If you'd like to see a very short video shot in the Town of Chernobyl, check out the following:

In 2008, every three hours a child or teen killed by gunfire

I haven't followed the Connecticut school shooting story. Too difficult. Too sad. And all too common. Yes common. The shooting of 20 children is almost a daily occurrence in the States. Reportedly, in 2008 it took only two and a half days on average for gunfire to kill 20 children and teens.

That's right: Every two and a half days there were 20 more children and teens murdered by guns. A total of 2947 died from gunfire in 2008 and another 2793 in 2009.

In 2008, 88 preschoolers were killed with guns and in 2009 another 85 died. These numbers are nearly double the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in that time.

According to the Children's Defense Fund:

• Recent data from 23 industrialized nations shows 87 percent of the children under 15 killed by guns in these nations lived in the United States. 
• The gun homicide rate in the United States for teens and young adults ages 15 to 24 was 42.7 times higher than the combined rate for the other nations.
• Of the 116,385 children and teens killed by a gun since 1979, when gun data by age were first collected, 44,038 were Black — even so, more White than Black children and teens have died from gun violence. 

What can be done? Banning weapons more suitable for war zones than American homes would be a start. Getting handguns out of circulation might be another. But a dialogue must be opened and answers must be found. 

Of course, it would help if the media would stop, do some research, and report the story, the arguments for and against gun ownership, with accuracy. Sadly accuracy is one of the first victims in a story like this. 

At first, it was reported that the school principal had buzzed Adam Lanza in (past school security) because she recognized him as the son of a colleague, Nancy Lanza, the shooter's mother, who worked at the school.

Later, we learned the gunman forced his way into the school by shooting through glass, breaching school's security system. The principal was shot, along with the school psychologist, trying to tackle the gunman and protect their students, according to later reports. And there was no connection between Adam Lanza’s mother and the school.

And what did the gunman use to kill the children. First reports said a rifle. Corrections then appeared, such as this one from The New York times claiming "the guns used in the school shooting were both handguns." Today the BBC is reporting, "The gunman shot all the victims at the school with a semiautomatic rifle . . . "

That facts surrounding this event should change, be corrected and then be corrected again, is not surprising. What is surprising is that the media have not learned this and learned to be more careful in their reporting. The media shows no restraint. In the end beating the competition is the biggest driving force behind the reporting of events such as this. Speed trumps all.

Consider the error-filled, fast-off-the-mark response of syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer:

"Think about the details of the crime, he (Adam Lanza) began by shooting his mother . . . and then destroying everything precious to her, her colleagues and her children, and then killing himself."

If I could advise my American friends how to approach this tragedy, I say approach this carefully, thoughtfully, try to find answers that are not steeped in ideology. Refuse to be rushed. Do not follow the path blazed by your media.

If you do step back, using reason and not emotion, you might (underlined) discover the truth surrounding gun control laws. You might, as a nation, shed light on a pressing global issue. You might discover how to prevent the senseless deaths of your young people who are dying a the rate of about one every three hours from gunfire.