I began working at Urban Outfitters last April as a part-

time sales associate, but I had been to Art Fair the previous 
year, and I think the thing I wondered most was, where on 
earth do all those clothes come from?

In the United States, there are 179 Urban Outfitters stores, 

and, in preparation for Art Fair, we get shipments from near-
ly all of them. Boxes of clothes, shoes and accessories come 
literally by the hundreds — one day, I swear, we got over 200 
boxes — from all over the country.

The process of sorting these boxes by their content is 

extensive and it’s all done in the grungy basement below the 
store and the bustling sidewalk.

Ah, the basement. The basement of Urban is a kind of bit-

tersweet place; it’s nice in the summer when it’s hot and you 
spend your shift in the wonderfully cool basement, listening 
to music and hanging up clothes from all those boxes. It’s 
not so nice when you have to carry over 200 boxes of ship-
ment that are sometimes rather heavy (think: an entire box 
of jeans) down about two flights of concrete steps. Keep in 
mind, the boxes are big, a.k.a. hard to see over. It can be a 

rather frightening experience.

For weeks before Art Fair, we send about five people down 

to the basement every day for five hours to hang all of the 
merchandise.

So, if there are five people in the basement, and at least five 

people upstairs on the floor, and this is still only a part time 
job, I pose my next question: Where on earth do all these 
people come from?

The short answer: lots and lots and lots of interviews.
In preparation for Art Fair, Urban hires 60 to 70 people. 

Yes, 60 to 70. They each get about one or two shifts a week, 
usually in the basement, work about 40 hours during the 
actual Fair as all employees do (it’s definitely an all-hands-
on-deck situation), and then get let go. Considering we were 
still training people the Sunday before the Fair, it can be a 
very seasonal job.

But, it’s worth it for the big fat Art Fair check. Employees 

also get to shop the sale a day early — a huge perk.

There are some exceptions: depending on how many 

employees left Urban over the summer (especially in a col-
lege town, as people graduate or transfer, it’s a pretty high 
turnover rate), about 10 to 20 Art Fair hires get to stay on as 
official hires. But, considering how many are hired, chances 
of that aren’t that great. However, it’s usually pretty obvious 

who wants and is good enough to stay; because we hire so 
many people just for Art Fair, there are a lot of people who 
might not get hired regularly, but we need the humanpower 
for the Fair.

During actual Art Fair, managers from close-by stores 

also come to help out. We acquire more mobile point of sale 
systems. And because everything is so crazy, each employee 
gets a name tag with his or her schedule for the entire Fair 
written on the back, broken down by hour which, for Art 
Fair hires, mostly consists of running down to the basement 
to refill dwindling sale as people purchase items. Everything 
is hyped.

And then, on July 19, everything goes away. Managers 

return to their stores, our basement returns to not doing 
much until next Art Fair and Art Fair hires go on their way.

To be honest, Art Fair is probably my favorite thing about 

working for Urban. While it’s a ton of work for everyone, 
especially for all the managers who have to do even more in 
preparation, it’s by far our busiest and most exciting couple 
of days of the year. I’m kind of sad when it’s over, but it’s also 
fulfilling knowing you helped to pull it off.

As consolation, the new outfits I buy and wear to work 

remain with me, a solemn reminder of those few days of Art 
Fair madness and that mysterious Urban basement.

6

Wednesday, July 15, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ART FAIR

URBAN
From Page 1

