Why Doesn't the Gap Get It?

Gap has tapped three designers to take on a Gap basic -- the white shirt. From the 17th of April the shirts will be available in 100 larger Gap stores. Who are the designers? With the way Gap spends money, surely they could do a Karl Lagerfeld collaboration, ala H&M? Or even Gwen Stefani, who has had such success with her own laber L.A.M.B.? No, they've decided to tap three up-and-comers, Doo-Ri Chung, Thakoon Panichgul, and Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte.

The effort to support new talent is laudable, and part of a new collaboration with the Council of Fashion Designers and Vogue, but given the company's lackluster performance, somewhat baffling. Top Shop has Kate Moss, H&M has Madonna, Mango has Penelope Cruz and her sister and Gap counters with Doo-Ri Chung? The Gap collaboration last year with Roland Mouret went off well -- the dresses became an instant uniform for women working in the fashion business -- but I think they could have made much more of it. Why not a special Roland Mouret for Gap label? For one thing it was primarily a European initiative. And why no in-store promotion? The only clue shoppers had that these dresses are not your usual Gap dresses was the unusually high price tag. It's also been said that Phoebe Philo, the former designer of Chloe, has also been consulting with the European arm of the Gap and may be doing her own special collection. In her case, the secrecy may be warranted -- it's likely she is waiting for a non-compete clause with Chloe to run out before she can take on public projects.

The new white shirts won't have special labels either, though the unrecognizable designers will appear in advertisements with top models wearing the shirts. The project reminds me of the last days of the J.Peterman stores. They decided to sell replicas of famous outfits worn in famous moives, say Lauren Becall's coat from the goodbye scene in Casablanca. But the studios wouldn't cooperate and give their permission for the clothes to be identified by the film. Nevertheless, Peterman pressed on with the project. So instead of pieces of costume history, on rack after rack were old-fashioned dresses with no explaination as to why they were there. No wonder the stores went belly up.

I'm all for supporting the designers, and will surely buy a shirt or two myself, but I do wish that if Gap are going to make the effort, they'd make more of an effort.