Dear Urban Outfitters,
I don’t usually complain to shops, if something annoys me I
will generally say something to a friend and that will be the end of it. If
something really annoys me, it will go on twitter or Facebook and it will be
forgotten about within a few days. But you know what? This is going further. I
am writing to you regarding the t-shirts that are on sale within your store and
on your website. These t-shirts are the ‘Eat Less’ and ‘Depression’ ones. (http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=29812401)
I don’t know what you are trying to achieve by putting these
out for sale. Are you trying to glorify mental illness? I sincerely hope not.
Do you know the statistics? Judging by your disgusting design ideas I am
assuming not, so I will enlighten you. 1 in 4 people in the UK suffer from some
sort of mental illness, it is estimated that in one year, over 1 million people
will commit suicide, 100,000 of these deaths being the very people these
t-shirts are advertised to, teenagers. I
have seen lives wrecked by Mental illness, the majority of these being
teenagers. Mental illness is just that, an illness. You would never even think
about a t-shirt with ‘cancer’ or ‘arthritis’ printed over it, so why
depression? And why encourage young people not to eat?
Surely you have seen in the news and on the internet the
thousands of people that are spending their lives working to stop the stigma of
mental illness? Stigma can shatter hopes of recovery and social inclusion,
leaving the person feeling devastated and isolated, people living with mental
illness often say the stigma and discrimination associated with their illness
can be worse than the mental illness itself. Why on earth would you want to
encourage that? It baffles me.
This is completely unacceptable, you give the message that
you want to make mental illness a fashion, it is vile. Surely, after what
happened with Asda and Tesco at Halloween, you didn’t expect to get away with
this? We need an explanation, and fast.
Sarah Brown.
A very upset ex-customer.
