Just Like The New Stuff, Only Better

Dust down the cargo pants, iron that crisp plain white cotton tee and don your Wayfarers, vintage Gap
GPS
is here and it’s doing a lot better than its distinctly non-vintage contemporary ranges.

Already a growing trend, Gap superfan Sean Wotherspoon – an American vintage collector and retailer and a founder of the NFT digital fashion brand MNTGE – ignited the resale market last month following strong existing consumer demand for vintage Gap items.

With resale platform Depop and marketplace eBay
EBAY
reporting strong vintage Gap sales, Gap duly noted the trend and decided to launch its own limited drop last month.

Collaborating with Wotherspoon, who sourced the drop from Gap archive apparel from the three decades from the 1980s onwards, plus merchandise he found in flea markets and at second-hand clothing stores around the world.

Lifelong Gap fan Wotherspoon said he wanted to show how many staples had eminated from the chain while, for Gap’s part, it said: “As a renowned vintage collector and lifelong Gap fan—his mother worked at a Gap store in the 90s and he was dressed head to toe in the brand as a kid—Sean holds the Gap Vintage collection near and dear to his heart.”

More To Come After Limited Drop

What followed was a big success. All the items, priced from $55-$90, sold out shortly after launch, including striped denim overalls, jean jackets, relaxed cut shorts and logo tees, offered via Gap’s website and at The Grove, Los Angeles, Ca. store.

“The first phase of our partnership with Sean kicked off in June and his curated pieces, hand-picked from around the world, were so well received by customers that it sold out in the first two days online,” said Christopher Goble, Gap head of merchandising.

Not suprisingly, more collaborations are slated throughout the year, while Wotherspoon has previously been linked to several high profile vintage drops in an increasingly active market.

Levi’s first launched Levi’s SecondHand in 2020, with a buyback program operated by Trove. And in April, Wotherspoon’s MNTGE partnered with Levi’s for the MNTGE Fruits and Veggies collection, featuring a mix of Levi’s denim embedded with NFC chips with numbered, collectible denim art tokens.

Denim brands Lee and Wrangler have also released small vintage drops, using merchandise sourced by their teams.

Gap Earnings Prompts Some Hope

It also comes at a time when the contemporary Gap range has struggled to resonate.

On May 25 Gap Inc. reported another quarter of net losses and falling sales across its four brands (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta) but said it was making progress, with significantly improved margins.

For the three-month period to April 29, the company’s net losses narrowed to $18 million, from $162 million in the year-earlier period, while sales fell to $3.28 billion, off 6% from $3.48 billion a year earlier.

“Consistent with what you’ve heard from us over the last few quarters, we continue to take the necessary actions to drive critical change at Gap Inc., to further improve the trajectory of our business,” interim CEO Bobby Martin said to investors.

Gap also confirmed it will lay off around 1,800 staff, more than three times as many as the 500 redundancies it announced in the Fall, as it cuts costs and streamlines operations.

Shares jumped on the improved margin news but are still trading around 13.5% off the start of the year.

For Gap not only has the vintage performance been a welcome distraction, but likely it reminds consumers of happier times past.

“This vintage drop was the first of a series we have coming up with Sean, and we can’t wait for our customers to see what we have in store next,” Goble said.