By Mary Best
Managing Editor
One of the best parts about fall is hitting up all the back-to-school sales, no questions asked.
Unfortunately, versatile cardigans, owl jewelry and sassy fringed boots are joined by yet another line of controversial t-shirts. The “girls can’t do math” theme from last year’s J.C. Penney t-shirt controversy has morphed into apparel glorifying underage drinking.
The clothing chain Urban Outfitters debuted the shirts just in time for all the tweens with a little summer cash to snag some great back-to-school deals. The shirts, modeled on what appears to be teens, boast messages such as a blurry printed “I drink, you’re cute,” “Vote for Vodka,” and, in the spirit of this summer’s Olympics, “USA Drinking Team,” according to an Aug. 27 Yahoo.com article.
Sure, it’s easy to say no to buying the t-shirt or for parents to prevent their kids from wearing it. But the mere presence of that shirt with a fancy graphic on the store’s website or on a hanger is silent peer pressure.
It’s no secret underage drinking is a big issue. In the United States, an estimated 10 million people under the age of 21 drank alcohol in the last month, according to a 2010 survey done by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
So what’s the harm in wearing a silly little shirt that is probably meant to be a joke?
Urban Outfitters is marketing an alcohol-related product to teens who legally cannot consume alcohol. Quantcast.com targets the preppy clothing chain’s biggest demographics at 18-24 and under age 18.
If you consider the youngest potential Urban Outfitters customer to be 13, then roughly 64 percent of the store’s biggest demographics are under 21.
It can’t be written off as a silly t-shirt if high school students can wear it in public. Sure not all of them are binge drinkers, but they wouldn’t buy the shirt if they didn’t think drinking was cool. I mean, it’s a plain t-shirt if you take away the text — there’s no way someone would purchase it just for the style.
It’s also no big surprise representatives for Urban Outfitters declined to comment, according to the Yahoo article. This isn’t the first time the store has come under fire for controversial clothing. In March, the store offended Irish consumers with St. Patrick’s Day merchandise linking Irish heritage with being drunk.
No matter what kind of restrictions parents place on their children’s shopping habits, I doubt that will stop teens from purchasing the shirt or considering how cool it would be to drink.
Why are clothing stores even selling shirts like this? It can be easily written off as something as ridiculous as the party-centric lifestyle glorified by Lindsay Lohan, but that won’t stop the subliminal messages the shirts send through the minds and smartphones of the next generation.
Urban Outfitters needs to give the alcohol-centric clothing a rest. It’s like they are trying to dress the Ke$has of America’s teens.
