Gap began as a shop selling only Levi's jeans and records
The first Gap, opened in San Francisco in August 1969, sold just two things: every size and style of Levi's, and LP records to lure teenagers in. The idea was borrowed from a Sacramento shoe shop in a Quonset hut, and the name was a nod to the generation gap.
Don Fisher, a commercial property broker, noticed that even Macy's kept running out of popular Levi's sizes. Inspired by the Tower of Shoes, which promised any brand, style or size a woman wanted, he asked his friend Walter Haas Jr., president of Levi Strauss, to let him apply the idea to jeans. Levi's advertising director Bud Robinson worked out a plan: Fisher would stock only Levi's, grouped by size, Levi's would restock overnight from its San Jose warehouse and cover half the radio advertising, and the same deal would be offered to any single-brand store to avoid antitrust trouble. His wife Doris chose the name.
Growth was rapid, with over 25 stores by 1973 and own-label clothing from 1974. Gap bought the small safari-themed chain Banana Republic in 1983 and moved it upmarket, launched the cheaper Old Navy in 1994 and acquired the women's sportswear firm Athleta in 2008. In the 1990s Mickey Drexler gave Gap a more upscale look, but after over-expansion and a 29-month sales slump he was pushed out in 2002; a month later the merchandise he had ordered helped sales rebound.
Some ideas misfired. A new logo in Helvetica, introduced on 4 October 2010, provoked such a public backlash that the company brought back the familiar blue box a week later. In 2011 Gap announced plans to close 189 US stores, and in 2014 it raised minimum pay for 65,000 store staff to $9 an hour, then $10 the following year. A 2007 BBC report of child labour at a supplier in India led it to promise an investigation.
The pandemic hit mall stores hard. A plan to close 90 locations grew to over 225 and then to 350 by 2024. Meanwhile, Gap invested $140 million in a Texas distribution centre able to handle one million packages daily. The company now runs 3,569 stores, and the designer Zac Posen became Gap's creative director in 2024.
Source: Gap Inc.
