I must confess I initially thought it was related to a more recent event, and I doubt I’m alone on that. It’s getting tough keeping track of these university shootings; it’s probably only a matter of time before we see something equally tasteless associated from some unspeakable act of violence from the last twenty years.
OMGlob…
This is a disgusting product, a disgusting controversy, followed by a disgusting lie all on the part of Urban Outfitters:
“There is no blood on this shirt nor has this item been altered in any way. The red stains are discoloration from the original shade of the shirt and the holes are from natural wear and fray.”
This is all, plain and simply, a lie. Then why choose Kent State? Why not a random University like my alma mater Towson University? You know why? No one died there, the school colors can’t be associated with blood, and NOTHING like state sanctioned murder happened there. Stop buying your thrift store grade clothing with department store prices. Also, stop buying pre-weathered clothing altogether. You only support idiotic ventures like Urban Outfitters when you do that.
They thrive on being a conversation starting company, but really end up being a group that profits on the blood of previous generations. Let. Them. Fall.
Anyone else think this is a MASSIVE over reaction to a completely none-story?
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This product has to be the ultimate celebration of the triumph of life-style marketing. It’s made all the more ironic with the current deployment of young people in wars overseas to show that nothing was truly gained at Kent State. Maybe they can follow up with a blood stained Iraq shirt.
WOW everyone jumped on this one before realizing what it really was…a single vintage red sweatshirt that was faded naturally by the sun. No one made it this way, it wasn’t designed, it doesn’t represent anything. Nope, just a faded sweatshirt part of a huge lot of one off faded clothes that they are selling. Oops.
All those horrible misinterpretations were solely from the minds of the people reading more into it then actually was there, ironically they are the ones dredging up painful memories for people unnecessarily, and the ones profiting off of this pain. The unfortunate truth is the only people profiting off of dredging up the kent state massacre are those who are getting click through on this non-story. pot meet kettle.
what? whoa… sorry but this is one item of clothing from a huge lot of naturally faded clothes they bought and are selling as one-offs, they didn’t design it, make it, choose kent state, or likely even realize what people would misconstrue it as. They bought the huge lot bulk sun faded clothes with no control of what was in it and listed thousands of items from the lot. It is only red because the original shirt was red before fading naturally from the sun. period. non-story.
But… its not blood spattered.
I love BB despite the occasional knee-jerk sensationalism and smug, self-righteousness. (Or quite possibly because of it… 
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I love BB as well. Most of the time it is thought provoking, informative, and truly a great blog, the reason I hold it to a higher standard is because I love it! 
I don’t want to see it ever go the way of Gizmodo and other blogs because I value it so much.
Gotta say, you guys claiming that UO couldn’t have fathomed what that would signify? Is that because you couldn’t?
Is it?
Also would like to know how the sweater in questioned faded to a red that is brighter than Kent State red. The spots evocative of fresh blood? Brighter than it would have been new. Why did that fade brighter while the rest of it was washed away by laundry, wear & time?
C’mon, if you people think that posting was innocent, what are you smoking?
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Absolutely. I know nothing about Kent State, other than that it is not in Kent.
No no no. The LIGHTER colour is the faded part, where the garment has been exposed to the sun. The DARKER part is where the garment has worn and you are seeing the darker original colour poking through. That’s how textiles work.
If you genuinely believe this was deliberately created to evoke a mass shooting incident, then I really don’t want to live in your world.
[Edited for clarity]
Sorry, didn’t know you don’t do history, I guess.
You think textiles fade that way?
Besides having been alive for more than 40 years I have also worked in fashion including textile design, cotton doesn’t do that, cotton poly blends don’t do that, polyester, nylon, the infinite offshoots of those & their respective blends don’t do that, silk doesn’t do that, not even rubberized or plasticized materials not in excess of 2mm thickness will do that, you are high.
Well for a start, I’m not from America. The world doesn’t revolve around one country. If we were to dedicate education time in history classes to every single school shooting incident that takes place on american soil, well let’s just say there wouldn’t be much time for our own history.
Secondly, you are wrong. I’ve got sweaters with virtually the same damage as the shirt in the article. Completely sober. Accept you are wrong and move on before you are completely made a fool of.
The shooting at Kent State University in May 1970 by National Guard killed four students and wounded nine others, some of them were protesting (a right in the US), others were watching. It was very quick, 67 rounds were fired over a period of 13 seconds. It was traumatic for high school and college students throughout the United States. One of the four students killed was a graduate of my high school. She went off to university, we expected her to return with stories of school, why we should apply there, or not, new things she had learned and experienced. Instead she was suddenly, stupidly, killed. Many of us still feel the shock today. Not a subject for T shirts.
Good job this wasn’t a “blood” stained t-shirt specifically made to bring up memories about that event then isn’t it.
That may be so. But this might be a good time to point out the rather extreme right wing leanings of Urban Outfitters’ CEO Richard Hayne who apparently donates to Rick Santorum (my fav wikipedia entry btw which shows that if you have the numbers and will you can own wikipedia.) and apposes gay marriage and supports procreative slavery of Women.
No, you don’t have any such sweater.
Neither your national origin nor your ignorance of history can change the colorfast properties of cotton or cotton/poly blends.
What country you are from doesn’t change the fact that the red of Kent State was never as bright red as the fake blood on the sweatshirt.
Your submitting to a monarch doesn’t make the incident at Kent State among “every single school shooting incident”. It was a watershed moment in the US, it hastened the end of the Vietnam war & was international news.
I suppose it -is- possible that if you only ever attended secondary school & were careful during modern western history to fall asleep it mayn’t been taught to you. Also, you were never much of a Neil Young fan, know less about Nixon than I do any Monarch & yet despite not having any clue of all that, somehow you -still- can’t change the physical colorfast properties of textiles.
Siddown.
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@FunkDaddy ummmm not to doubt your immense expertise on the subject of textile fading or anything, but this sweatshirt was part of a lot of thousands of similar sun faded used clothes that they bought and were selling. They didn’t make any of them. They didn’t design any of them. They didn’t alter any of them. Each piece was used, naturally sun faded, and not created or designed in any way by UO. They all look very similar, each one an authentic piece of used clothing, resold exactly as it arrived.
Sure UO has made some very questionable choices in the past, and I can understand given UO’s past how one could mistakenly assume this was an intentional political design, but in this case it was not. if you actually bother to look into it you’d see that the facts surrounding this item are pretty clear, it isn’t what you think it is.
Please actually look into the facts before berating someone who is correct. @CaptainPedge is right. I also have similarly sun faded items, examine the photo more closely for a moment. the “fake blood” spots are simply repair spots using a light fast nylon thread, which would not fade the same as the dyed cotton. Likely some kids mom patched up his favorite sweatshirt back when it was all still red and just picked up some cheap thread that was the closest color. also likely the young underpaid shlep that photographed and posted the shirt for UO has never even heard of kent state and didn’t think twice as this was just one of many items they had to get through posting.
I’ll admit that this is a disturbing art piece created by sun…but that is all it is.
damn you insensitive, politically incorrect, natural fading!!!
One could also argue that $130 for a used faded sweatshirt is an outrage but that is another conversation altogether…
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