Bodega chic: the case of Urban Outfitters (UPDATED)

UPDATE: Anton Troianovski at the WSJ has pictures of the proposed storefront. Yeah, it looks goofy, but I still don't see what the fuss is about. The first comment on Anton's blog seems right to me. 

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Urban Outfitters is opening a store at Broadway and 100th that won't be like the usual UO store. Instead, it will be an exercise in "bodega chic", where the storefront will be split into four distinct false fronts: a hat store, a hardware store, a neighborhood bar and a bodega. According to the store's designer, "The whole idea was to do this kind of ironic statement of lining the building with storefronts that would be reminiscent of independent businesses."

Avi over at the Westside Independent is ticked. He sees it as the real-life version of "derelicte", the homeless-chic clothing line parodied in Zoolander. "Welcome to our fake community," he writes.

Except it's hard to see how this is anything more than the application of the urban outfitters product line to the store itself. After all, UO's entire success was built on selling fake or kistschy versions of retro, bohemian, and vintage styles. And sure, the "ironic" aspect of it all is a bit annoying, but as I argue in my book, there's actually something refreshingly honest about the "fake authentic". What we really need to be on our guard against are the subtler ways of exploiting the authentic, something that New Yorkers are more familiar with than just about anyone on Earth. What's more pernicious - Urban Outfitters' for-the-masses fake authentic, or the all-too earnest authenticity mongering where ecxlusivity is obtained through price discrimination, or -- worse -- social connections?

(via @davidreevely)