Urban Jungle: Streetwear Close to Home
Within my first year and a half of college, I experienced my own fashion transformation. I shifted from wearing jeans and a t-shirt every day to being fully invested in the world of streetwear and carefully crafting my outfits.
I used to live in California, where it's much more common to find stores fully devoted to streetwear, however when I moved to Minneapolis, I didn’t expect to find good brick-and-mortar stores for brands I was interested in. As my awareness of streetwear culture grew, I continued to shop online. This all changed when I discovered Urban Jungle.
Urban Jungle can be found at 1419 S Washington Ave and gives any fashion-minded Minneapolitan a chance to actually go into a physical store with verified streetwear and try it on. Shopping online is great and all, but you always inevitably run into a situation where your package arrives and the clothes don’t fit right or you end up taking a chance on getting an authentic piece, just to find out that the sneakers are not verified as real. Urban Jungle addresses these concerns and is staffed with knowledgeable employees to further help you make a decision. They also make certain elements of streetwear far more accessible. Hyped releases often get snatched up after they drop because people utilize bots to scoop up all the supply before most people have a chance to even get one. Urban Jungle solves this by managing to keep a small stock of such sought-after items such as Travis Scott Jordans, SB Dunks or off-white AF1’s. The local store features the brands you might expect: Nike, Supreme, and Bape. But Urban Jungle also carries a lot of more niche stuff like Kapital, CPFM, and Raf Simons. However, the store isn't all pricey streetwear, they also have an excellent selection of vintage clothing that they offer at lower prices.
The store is still young, it was founded in 2017, but it has managed to grow into an absolute staple in the community. They are very involved with events like a costume contest on Halloween with prizes and they also hosted a flea market with local vendors and food. You can even take part in random giveaways where Urban will post on Instagram that they are giving away a pair of sneakers or streetwear hidden in a certain location and you have to rush to try to find it. I’ve never actually gotten there on time as people snap them up, but regardless it’s a fun way to connect with customers and reflects how Urban has become such a go-to for Minneapolis streetwear devotees. The store has been frequented by a number of athletes and celebrities who happened to be in town for an event or concert. Some notable examples featured on their Insta are Minnesota athletes like KJ Osborn, Kellen Mond, and Iann Dior.