What I do, I have a photograph in my mind. I go into a shop, it paints a picture or it doesn't.

One bad color in a great painting, that changes, throws off the whole painting. It's like the wheels,

the ugly wheels on a Mustang. And I mean that every car now is ugly wheels.

I can't get over it.

You know, you see the wheels.

It's like having a bad button on a sweater like this.

This is one of our best sellers.

And if you put an ugly button on this,

that's what you notice.

And I say never give a customer a reason not to buy something.

Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. Most people think retail is about selling things. Mickey Drexler proved it's about selling dreams. As the CEO of Gap and Jay-Crew, he understood something

profound about the American aspiration. People don't just want clothes. They want to become someone through what they wear. A boy from the

Bronx who transformed into retail's merchant prints, Drexler could walk into a room with 100 samples

and instantly spot the three winners because he saw what Americans wanted to become before they knew it themselves.

From advising Steve Jobs on Apple's retail strategy to building Old Navy from scratch, Drexler's

career traces a remarkable journey of seeing opportunities that others missed. In this conversation,

he shares the insights and instincts that let him repeatedly predict and shape American taste.

Whether you're building a brand, leading a team, or trying to see around corners in your own industry,

you'll learn how one of the retail's greatest minds thinks about the psychology of consumer desire,

the principles of brand building, and the art of

knowing what people want often before they do. It's time to listen and learn.

Let's start at the beginning. You said your father was a model of what you didn't want.

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