Gap Inc is one of the world’s largest specialty retailers, with more than 3,100 stores.
It operates five of the most recognised apparel brands in the world - Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta.
Iconic high street brand Gap – which sells wardrobe essentials such as t-shirts, hoodies and denim – began as one brand and has since grown to include Gap, GapKids, BabyGap, GapMaternity and GapBody.
Banana Republic is an accessible luxury lifestyle brand offering work, resort and play clothing for men and women, shoes, accessories and personal care products. Headquartered in San Francisco, the brand now has more than 500 stores globally. Its first European store opened in London in 2008. It also has a number of Banana factory outlets in the US.
Zoba says: “If Banana continues to do well in London I like to think it could work in a lot of the other major cities, like Manchester.”
Affordable on-trend apparel and accessory brand, Old Navy, is only available in North America at present but Gap Inc has not ruled out taking it overseas.
Athleta is aimed at female athletes and has just one store in San Francisco so far.
“We are hoping to roll Athleta out in the US,” Zoba says. “We are going to test our first store in San Francisco but we are considering some locations for it and we hope it will work out and be a good new brand for us.”
And finally, Piperlime is a high fashion online store which showcases over 200 brands of hand-picked women’s apparel, shoes and handbags.
Zoba adds: “It’s another fast-growing, very successful business. We did a little pop-up store at New York fashion week. It’s a purely online, fun brand and there are no plans to open a brick and mortar store
For the full article, please see the February 2011 issue.
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