Branded - By Samuel Scott

This afternoon, as I was searching for a particular coffee shop, I found myself passing by what looked to be an Urban Outfitters store and then found myself standing inside the open doors. Feeling particularly unfocused, I had not read the sign on the outside of the store, so I was able to play a game with myself whereby I wondered around the interior looking for clues to verify that I was where I thought I was. Glancing around, I recognized the loft-like layout stocked with distressed jeans, dozens of t-shirts with kitschy pictures and slogans, and a large assortment of funky accessories. Yes, I decided, this looks to be the place.

Upstairs in the mens section, I picked up a new pair of faded jeans. They had worn out knees and a hole just below one of the seat pockets. “Made in China,” the label read. I tried to picture Chinese workers in a garment factory abusing piles of new jeans with corrosive chemicals and metal tools. While looking at a pinstriped blazer with a large decal sewn onto its back, I had the peculiar thought that Urban Outfitters will occupy some portion of hell. Although I spend a considerable amount of time reflecting on salvation, I do not consider hell to be part of the equation and rarely think about it.

Clothing stores sell much more than clothes when they incorporate large pictures of models and elaborate displays into their store designs. Through clothing they are selling the implied promise of happiness, sex, and better living – a second skin. Each store, each strategy offers a slightly different destination. “The Land of Abercrombie and Fitch” tends to be inhabited by monochrome models and pastel shades. The primary color laden, low rent acid trip of Old Navy offers shoppers the $25 look and lifestyle for $10. Its strongly middle class cousin, The Gap, and the newly affluent but accessible relative, The Banana Republic, operate further up the gradient where the perks get better and the shit stinks progressively less.

By contrast, Urban Outfitters does not use in-store ads and lets the ripped up merchandise sell itself. The stores certainly offer lots of apparel, but do not explicitly push the good life. The implied message is, “We’re already here and none of us are getting any better. Urbanity has been achieved. If you want, buy this shirt with faux coffee stains on the front. It can help you look world-weary.”

Similarly, hell is an easy sale. It is a case of conjunctivitis, a trip to jail – it requires no involvement and little understanding. It just is.

Heaven, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be selling as readily. Sure there are a lot of buyers, but it is the most heavily marketed idea and destination in human history. The place of eternal, ineffable bliss and delight is sold through every imaginable medium: television, radio, movies, billboards – even personal selling from family, friends, and strangers. Holy wars serve as bothersome ads for competing products; they take shots at the other product and increase their own exposure, but do little to provide the public with relevant information.

Leaving the store I looked back into the windows and caught sight of my reflection. I noticed my hair had again grown shaggy. In the falling light my cheekbones and nose looked more craggy than usual. A few days of beard growth and small lines around my eyes lent my face a slightly distressed, but wearable quality. I smiled at the synchronicity, the nearness of hell.