Shrinking the Gap: how the clothing brand lost its way

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

Gap’s clothes defined an era, but the brand has been steadily declining for years. Can a collaboration with Kanye West revive its fortunes – or is it just another sign of a company flailing around for an identity?. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:30.0	The Guardian is a book, read by Kelly Burke, produced by Jessica Beck and Ian Chambers.
0:37.0	The executive producer was Danielle Stevens.
0:41.0	Bring to mind, if you will, Gap's classic logo hoodie.
0:46.0	You know the one.
0:48.0	Three bold letters arranged in an arch across the chest.
0:52.0	It was everywhere in the 1990s and 2000s, sold in a rainbow of saturated colors.
0:59.0	This sweatshirt didn't signal a taste for fashion, so much as a desire for comfort at a reasonable price.
1:06.0	It was like the air we breathed, or the music floating around as we prowled the mall, ever present and hardly worth remarking upon.
1:16.0	Over the years, the sweatshirt faded out of view, until in 2020 an odd thing happened.
1:23.0	It suddenly became a hot fashion item at the hands of Gen Z. On Instagram and TikTok, stylish young influencers started posting photos and videos of themselves wearing Gap hoodies.
1:36.0	Suddenly, these hoodies looked rather hip and cool.
1:40.0	The YouTube star, Emma Chamberlain, posted a series of photos of herself on Instagram, her expression oscillating between detached, sleepy and slightly mournful.
1:51.0	As she stood next to a pool wearing white bikini bottoms and a navy Gap logo hoodie.
1:58.0	The post received more than 2.4 million likes.
2:03.0	Over the next few months, numerous influencers incorporated the sweatshirt into their outfits on social media.
2:11.0	Barbara Christofferson, a Danish influencer with almost 748,000 followers on Instagram, wore a brown Gap hoodie with wide leg brown pants and a matching Louis Vuitton handbag.
2:25.0	The UK-based Lucy Page, with 12,400 followers on Instagram, wore it with cow-print pants and chunky sneakers.
2:35.0	I wish I could tell my younger self that she'll be back to wearing Gap hoodies in the future, Page wrote on Instagram.
2:42.0	Soon enough, TikTok's amateur fashion commentators were declaring the Gap logo hoodie a full-on trend.
2:50.0	What happens on fashion TikTok tends to be fleeting, but sometimes these trends are signs of broader shifts in the culture.
2:59.0	Natalie Langhorn, who posts fashion-related videos on TikTok, told me that conditions were prime for a Gap comeback.
	...

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