Urban Renewal has been a part of Urban Outfitters for about 20 years. How does Urban Renewal fit in with the bigger picture of UO as a brand?

Urban Renewal is an exclusive brand to UO that offers something totally unique that none of our competitors can match. We've been quietly touting the "green" thing to a devoted customer base for 20 years and we'll continue to do so long after the green trend has passed.

How did Urban Renewal come to be? When did it get started, and do you remember the inaugural product?

It started in the late 80s. We sold "nerd costumes" for Halloween! Soon after, in the early 90s, we featured the "wall of denim" and loads of flannel shirts (it was the heyday of grunge, you know...)

Have you been with Renewal from the beginning?

I've been working on Renewal for 10 years. I've had a handful of roles, from vintage picking to re-design and production.

Tell us about the space you work in...how much space do you occupy and how many people are a part of the big picture?

We work in the lovely Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia. Local manufacturing is extremely important to us. We employ a manufacturing staff of 40 that we work side by side with on a daily basis. No sweatshops here! We occupy a 20,000 square foot warehouse space that contains our design studio and vintage archives. It's in the same building as our sewing contractors, who cut and sew our seasonal 60-piece collections.

What's the lifecycle of an Urban Renewal item? Describe how a piece goes from source material to final product.

The overall lifecycle of a typical Urban Renewal product is four to six months. We're somewhat limited with source materials so we tend to work with the same things year after year (men's shirts, sheets, Levi's denim, vintage t-shirts, 70s/80s dresses, blouses -there's lots of bad 80s "career lady" stuff out there that works brilliantly for reconstruction- and hippie skirts) but update them through new wash and dye treatments as well as incorporating new trims.

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