Citizens, rejoice! You'll no longer have to travel to Dallas or Kansas City for high-waisted skinny jeans, mass-produced moccasins, or two for $20 BDG v-necks. Brookside's got a new kid on the block, coming in the form of Urban Outfitters.
From the Tulsa World:
Urban Outfitters is bringing its stylish, urban brand to Tulsa with the opening next year of a store at 3340 S. Peoria Ave.
Although the company has not released details about the future store, a representative with Urban Outfitters in an email earlier confirmed that the store will be opening in the Tulsa area. It will be the retailer's first store in Oklahoma.
The two-story, 9,000-square-foot store is scheduled to open in mid-February 2015, said Henry Aberson of Aberson Development.
Aberson said he had been in contact with Urban Outfitters for seven years, working with three different groups of people who have come and gone, to try and bring the retailer to Tulsa.
"Finally, the stars aligned," he said.
In neighboring states, Urban Outfitters has several locations in Texas, including Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth, as well as locations in Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Denver, to name a few.
"They are ready, and we have found the location that is very urban like, and they love the area; they love the building," Aberson said.
In Tulsa, Urban Outfitters will be located in the same building that used to house The Ivey bar and is located next to Ida Red Boutique. It's also located a block north of the upscale center 1 shopping area, which Aberson also developed.
"It will be a full-line store. It's comparable to any of the major stores they have in the Southwest area, size-wise ... They are not putting some little, dinky store in Tulsa. They are excited about Tulsa," Aberson said.
Work is already under way within the building that will house the future store.
It's really really hard for me to accept this news as the truth. If you've lived in Tulsa for a while and had even a vague sense of fashion awareness, you've heard these kind of rumors about Urban Outfitters coming for years now. Every time they've proven false, I've felt like a kid whose ice cream cone was yanked away, or Dean Blevins after someone steals his Smart Ones. I'm still hesitant to believe this news, but only because it's a subconscious defense mechanism.
How do hipsters feel about Urban Outfitters nowadays? I have trouble keeping up with that breed's capricious likes and dislikes. I remember they were way onboard throughout Urban's string of cultural appropriation gaffes. However, now that Urban has made attempts to reform, I have no idea if they're now considered too mainstream and (in her words) "sheep-like" for say, Christina Fallin and her friends.
Urban Outfitters is opening up in Tulsa's equivalent of where Babu Bhatt's restaurant was. About a dozen other businesses have moved in there, and all crashed and burned in less than a year. It's a jinxed location, but considering how excited Tulsans get about receiving major national chain stores, I'd be surprised if UO doesn't absolutely thrive.
I'm actually kinda conflicted about Urban coming to town. Up until now, the only options for a Tulsa twentysomething like myself to shop were pretty much the Gap or Saks. Thus, restricting myself to shop only while out-of-town on business trips was pretty easy. Considering I have zero self-control, this forced kind of discipline has kept me able to afford my rent the last few years. Now, a mecca of cute clothes is moving in a mile away from where I dwell. I better get a head start and freeze my credit card now.
Another thing that sort of sucks about Urban Outfitters coming to Tulsa is that the worldly and tres chic fashion style that I carefully cultivated for myself is soon going to expose itself as a complete fraud. My jig is up! Oh these mom jean shorts? I cut them myself out of a pair of thrift shop Levi's from the 70s. They weren't mass-produced in a factory from China, no way! These are like, totally vintage. Same with the military patches on my distress leather jacket, my retro 49ers t-shirt, and my Grateful Dead tank top. Actually, my great-aunt wore this very headscarf when she tripped on acid then boned Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock--I mean, it's practically an artifact!
-
Follow Chelsea on Twitter at @xCawoodstock
