Shrinking the Gap: how the clothing brand lost its way
缩小差距:服装品牌Gap是如何迷失方向的
Bring to mind, if you will, Gap's classic logo hoodie. You know the one: three bold letters arranged in an arch across the chest.
如果你愿意,想想Gap印着logo的经典款卫衣。你知道的:三个粗体字母在胸前呈拱形排列。
It was everywhere in the 1990s and 2000s sold in a rainbow of saturated colours.
在20世纪90年代和00年代,这种卫衣随处可见,以彩虹般的各种饱和颜色出售。
This sweatshirt didn't signal a taste for fashion so much as a desire for comfort at a reasonable price.
这种运动衫与其说是彰显时尚品味,不如说是希望用合理的价格带来舒适的穿着。
It was like the air we breathed, or the muzak floating around as we prowled the mall, ever-present and hardly worth remarking upon.
它就像我们呼吸的空气,或者逛商场时听到的背景音乐,无时无刻不在,几乎不值得一提。
Over the years, the sweatshirt faded out of view, until, in 2020, an odd thing happened: it suddenly became a hot fashion item at the hands of gen Z.
多年来,这种运动衫逐渐淡出人们的视线,直到2020年,一件奇怪的事情发生了:它突然成为Z世代手中的热门时尚单品。
On Instagram and TikTok, stylish young influencers started posting photos and videos of themselves wearing Gap hoodies. Suddenly these hoodies looked rather hip and cool.
在Ins和TikTok上,时尚的年轻网红开始上传自己穿着Gap卫衣的照片和视频。突然之间,这些卫衣看起来相当时髦酷炫。
The YouTube star Emma Chamberlain posted a series of photos of herself on Instagram, her expression oscillating between detached, sleepy, and slightly mournful, as she stood next to a pool wearing white bikini bottoms and a navy Gap logo hoodie.
油管明星艾玛·张伯伦在Ins上发布了一组照片,她站在泳池边,表情时而疏离,时而困倦,时而略显哀伤,她身上穿的是白色比基尼下装和藏蓝色的Gap卫衣。
The post received more than 2.4 million likes. Over the next few months, numerous influencers incorporated the sweatshirt into their outfits on social media.
这个帖子获得了超过240万个赞。随后几个月里,众多网红在社交媒体上把Gap卫衣加入了她们的穿搭中。
Barbara Kristoffersen, 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.
在Ins上拥有近74.8万粉丝的丹麦网红芭芭拉·克里斯托弗森穿着棕色Gap卫衣和棕色阔腿裤,还搭配了一个LV手提包。
The UK-based Lucy Page, with 12,400 followers on Instagram, wore it with cow-print pants and chunky sneakers.
英国的露西·佩奇在Ins上有12400名粉丝,她用奶牛印花裤子和厚底运动鞋搭配Gap卫衣。
"I wish I could tell my younger self that she'll be back to wearing GAP hoodies in the future," Page wrote on Instagram.
佩奇在Ins上写道:"我希望能告诉年轻时的自己,她将来还会穿Gap卫衣。"
Soon enough, TikTok's amateur fashion commentators were declaring the Gap logo hoodie a full-on trend. What happens on fashion TikTok tends to be fleeting, but sometimes these trends are signs of broader shifts in the culture.
很快,TikTok的业余时尚评论员就宣布Gap卫衣是一种全面的潮流。TikTok上的时尚风潮是转瞬即逝的,但有时这些趋势表明更广泛的文化转变正在发生。
Natalie Langhorne, who posts fashion-related videos on TikTok, told me that conditions were prime for a Gap comeback.
在TikTok上发布时尚相关视频的娜塔莉·朗霍恩告诉我,Gap再度流行的条件非常成熟。
Young shoppers were going wild for logo-heavy clothes from brands like Nike, Gucci and Louis Vuitton, and, chronically nostalgic for the recent past, they were adopting "Y2K fashion" in droves.
年轻消费者疯狂购买耐克、古驰和路易威登等带有醒目的品牌logo的服饰,他们长期怀念不久之前的过去,成群结队地拥抱"Y2K时尚"。
"Gap literally fits all of that criteria," said Langhorne, who is 24 and lives in Philadelphia.
住在费城的24岁的朗霍恩说:"Gap完全符合所有这些标准。"