No nostalgic stroll down a memory lane populated with high street stalwarts would be complete without a visit to Gap. The American denim and basics chain, which made Manhattan loft living into a high street retail experience (and at its peak felt as crucial to the UK shopping experience as home-grown institutions such as M&S and John Lewis), had the ability to make even the simplest blue Oxford shirt or blandest pair of beige chinos seem like the coolest thing in the world.
Enchanted by the all-American dream Gap offered (Bruce Springsteen blue-denim patriotism with a side of Missy Elliott swagger), fashion diehards shopped its organised rails for great jeans and staples, while the masses bought its comfortable hoodies and branded T-shirts.
The American fashion designer Zac Posen, 44, born and raised in Lower Manhattan, New York, remembers being transfixed from an early age. “There was something so elevated and sophisticated about the stores — there was nothing else like them at the time. And, of course, there were the campaigns,” he says, referring to the adverts that featured everyone from Joan Didion to Naomi Campbell. “I desperately wanted to be a Gap kid.”
Fast-forward four decades and Posen, a red carpet designer and former New York Fashion Week darling who has dressed Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian and everyone in between, is living that dream. On February 5, 2024, Gap Inc announced him as its new executive and creative director, overseeing all four Gap-owned labels: as well as Gap itself (or The Gap, as it was known until 1986), Gap Inc owns Old Navy, Banana Republic and the leisurewear brand Athleta.
Under Gap’s president and CEO, Richard Dickson, who was appointed in 2023 fresh from orchestrating the comeback of Barbie for the toymaker Mattel, Posen’s objective is to breathe new life into the retailer, which has been in crisis mode for the best part of a decade.
Undoubtedly Gap, which started life as an independent denim and record store in San Francisco (founded by the married couple Donald and Doris Fisher), is a shadow of its former self having endured a slow and painful decline.Struggling to appeal to a new generation of trend-driven consumers, Gap’s problems began long before the pandemic took hold, when it became better known for its mass discounts than for its excellently cut jeans. With no robust online business to rely on, the 2020 lockdowns had a disastrous impact on the chain. In 2020 it announced that it would close about 30 per cent of its Gap and Banana Republic stores in America. A year later it confirmed plans to close all 81 of its UK and Ireland stores.
It was only a joint venture with the UK retailer Next, which owned 51 per cent of the partnership, that kept Gap in the UK. The British chain gave customers the opportunity to buy Gap products through its infrastructure and website. In 2022 Gap re-established its presence on the British high street with a shop-within-a-shop housed in Next’s Oxford Street store. But by 2023 the company’s valuation had fallen from more than $40 billion at its height in 2000 to $8.4 billion.
From left: Cynthia Erivo, Anne Hathaway and Timothée Chalamet wearing Gap on the red carpet; Da’Vine Joy Randolph in a Gap denim gown at the Met Gala
GETTY IMAGES
The surprise appointment of Posen as a source of creative inspiration is among the first of Dickson’s comeback strategies. Posen is behind the new GapStudio line, a slightly more expensive take on the brand’s signatures that launched in the UK at the weekend, as well as being charged with “creating magic” across the brand. “Richard came to me and said, ‘I need a Willy Wonka,’” Posen says, dialling into our video call from San Francisco. “I knew it was an amazing opportunity. I had this incredible moment over French fries and tea at [the restaurant] Balthazar on my birthday when everything just fell into place.”
Posen admits that his appointment at Gap gave him closure from a “terrible” period in his life, triggered by the collapse of his eponymous label, once a go-to for red-carpet-frequenting celebs like Rihanna. Launched in 2001 after the Manhattan designer returned home having completed his womenswear degree in London at Central Saint Martins, Zac Posen the brand was forced to close after investors pulled the plug in 2019. Sixty jobs were lost.
“The aftermath of losing everything we’d built was really hard,” he says. “Life can be tough and shit, but I had to try to remain resilient and remember what mattered. I had a roof over my head, I had my imagination, my health.”
Posen, a linchpin of the New York fashion scene, busied himself in the aftermath with one-off projects (including making the costumes for Ryan Murphy’s TV drama Feud: Capote vs the Swans) and tending to his garden before fashion pulled him back in. He doesn’t name names but says he was very far down the line of the process of signing for a luxury brand in Europe when Gap came calling.
The lull in his career also gave Posen time for his personal life. In 2022 he got engaged to the New York City Ballet principal dancer Harrison Ball. These days the couple are adapting to their new dual-state lifestyle, splitting their time between New York and San Francisco, with the occasional trip to Yorkshire, where some of Ball’s family are based. “We go once or twice a year,” Posen says. “I love it up north.”
From left: denim sailor jeans, £150, trench coat, £225, pleated vest top, £50, GapStudio, gap.co.uk
It’s early days where turning round the fortunes of Gap is concerned, but Posen has been quick to make his mark on the business. The first headlines came last summer when a sculptural Gap shirtdress he made for his long-standing fan and friend Anne Hathaway to wear to an event in Italy sold out within hours.
Did it take a lot to persuade a woman used to couture to step out in a £120 high street dress? “Absolutely not,” Posen says. “Anne called me. She is whip-smart and knows what she wants. We have a long history. Gap means something to her as it does to many of the people we are dressing.”
Certainly he seems to be having few issues convincing Hollywood to mind the Gap on the red carpet. Posen dressed Da’Vine Joy Randolph in a floor-sweeping, corseted denim dress, complete with train, for the Met Gala last year (escorting her on the red carpet in a suit from Banana Republic). Cynthia Erivo and Timothée Chalamet, on whom Posen unveiled his first GapStudio men’s look, have also supported the brand.
Posen’s plan is to have a creative hub at Gap where he uses his “artisanal couture skill set for experimentation, for denim exploration” and create a whole lot of buzz around the brand in the process. “I don’t think people realise how artisanal the process of creating great denim is. There is no machine here spitting it out. Every pair of jeans that you wear has been hand-washed.”
As Mark Breitbard, head of Gap’s global brand, explains: “The Studio line is meant to do two things: develop incredible couture red carpet moments like we’ve done this past year with the Met Gala and Anne Hathaway in our white shirtdress, and collections for our customers that are available in stores and online, like with the launch of this collection.”
A determination to position Gap apart from so-called fast fashion is also a motivating factor. “I just want to make the greatest pieces possible, the best quality at the best price point,” Posen says. “It’s exciting for me to be able to make a large impact at a brand like this and to do things on the scale available here, but most important is that we can provide incredible products that enrich people’s lives.”
• I tried Anne Hathaway’s dress. Can it save Gap?
Among his new options waiting to enrich your life is a tailored denim blazer, a pair of excellently cut sailor jeans and a denim trench (“I won’t be too sassy but I really do think it’s a killer trench”). There’s also a series of skorts, or miniskirts with shorts built in (“for the corporate girlies,” he says).
The range, which starts at £50 and goes up to £225 for a coat, takes its lead from classic Gap pieces unearthed by Posen during many deep dives into the archives.
Customers can shop the collection online at gap.co.uk and at the store on Oxford Street. In a nod to Gap days of old, there’s also the opportunity to admire it in a glorious ad campaign shot by Mario Sorrenti and featuring the models Alex Consani, Imaan Hammam and Anok Yai.
Posen’s plan isn’t entirely heritage-based. “I have a punk rebellious side in me. The point of this collection is that it has a bit of an edge to it.” Perhaps this time around wearing Gap is about standing out from the crowd instead of blending in beautifully. Designer collaborations such as last year’s collection with Dôen would confirm this idea. Certainly Gap is reluctant to place the pressure of restoring its glory on just one set of shoulders.
“Zac is an amazing creative energy source,” Breitband says. “We’re thrilled to have him as a resource and source of inspiration for our teams. He is a great connector and champion for Gap.”
With stores still few in numbers (there are now six shops-within-a-shop in the UK and more than 20 concessions), there’s a long way to go yet. But the comeback is very much on. In January Gap Inc reported sales growth for the fourth consecutive quarter. The stock price is also on the rise. This American dream continues.
@karendacre
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