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