Sales Are
Up. Celebrities Are In. Is Gap Officially Back?
Richard
Dickson has drawn inspiration from the clothing retailer’s early days as he
tries to regain its cultural cachet.
Jordyn
Holman
By Jordyn
Holman
Of all
the Gap brands, Old Navy is where Jordyn Holman shops the most.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/business/richard-dickson-gap.html
May 10,
2026
At Gap’s
headquarters in San Francisco, an archive dedicated to the apparel company’s
57-year history features nearly 6,000 boxes of memorabilia documenting the
retailer’s brands, which also include Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta.
There are
prints from photographers like Annie Leibovitz and material related to many
celebrity ad campaigns, like Missy Elliott and Madonna for Gap and Cindy
Crawford for Old Navy. Those dated back to the retailer’s heyday, when malls
were full, celebrities wore the brand on red carpets and Gap stores were plot
points in sitcoms like “Seinfeld.”
When
Richard Dickson started as Gap’s chief executive nearly three years ago, he was
awed by those archives and set out to change the conversation about the
company.
Gap had
spent years closing hundreds of stores across the United States, as sales
flagged and profits were patchy. Its stock, which peaked in 2000, was
languishing. The company took more than a year to fill the C.E.O. position.
Mr.
Dickson, who spent nearly 20 years at Mattel, brought with him a playbook that
had helped revitalize the toymaker’s brands like Hot Wheels and Barbie. He got
Barbie to the big screen, with star power and a marketing machine that produced
blockbuster financial results.
The
native New Yorker speaks excitedly about the ways that fashion, entertainment
and music are intertwined. He went to Coachella last month and has been to the
Oscars in recent years. He often mentions how Gap’s first store, which opened
in 1969 in San Francisco, sold records, tapes and jeans.
Mr.
Dickson’s culture-focused strategy is taking root. For his creative director,
he hired Zac Posen, who dressed Kendall Jenner in a Gap gown for the recent Met
Gala. Gap has made toe-tapping ads featuring Katseye and Parker Posey. Mr.
Dickson even hired another C.E.O. — a chief entertainment officer — to oversee
the company’s push into content, licensing and Hollywood.
Gap’s
comparable sales have risen for eight straight quarters, and its market value
has increased to $8.5 billion, from $3.6 billion when Mr. Dickson started. Last
year, Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic posted sales increases, with only
Athleta recording a decline. Gap’s namesake brand showed the strongest growth.
Mr.
Dickson, 58, credits the turnaround to “being aware of pop culture, content,
art, theater, music, entertainment.” If a brand makes sure that those themes
come through, “you become more relevant,” he said.
This
interview was edited and condensed.
As you
try to bring Gap back into the cultural conversation, how are you managing your
time? Are you spending more time in Hollywood?
As our
business evolves, my allocated time also changes.
When I
first got to the company, we were in “fix mode.” It’s no secret. My time was
100 percent spent on the operations, the financial rigor, setting up strategic
priorities and editing a lot of the noise in the system that can be very
distracting for a turnaround.
Over the
course of three years, we’ve emerged a better company. Now we move into the
next phase, which is to build momentum. My focus, while not taking my eye off
the operational discipline, moves more into how to accelerate our growth.
I have a
multitude of meetings and time spent with the entertainment community, which
I’m very familiar with from previous roles.
When you
were hired from Mattel, the chatter was that you would try to recreate the
Barbie magic. Is that true, or is there a different strategy for Gap?
It’s
actually the same playbook. It is not so much that the playbook is unique; it’s
the methodology and the execution that’s unique.
The
playbook is, first, identifying what’s our reason for being.
You could
put me on any brand in the world. Why do you exist? What is our purpose? What’s
our point of difference? Those simple questions have very complicated answers
when you’re in a turnaround. If you can’t answer it in a sentence or two, or
one or two words, you’ve got a problem.
Old Navy
is different from Gap. Gap is different from Banana. Banana is different from
Athleta.
So let’s
focus on Gap. What makes it distinctive?
When I
look at the history of every one of our brands — it wasn’t dissimilar to the
Barbie conversation — what was it that broke through? What was that single
thing that made it so incredibly relevant?
In our
case, it was a store that was all-inclusive before inclusivity became a word,
because we sold jeans for all races, all sizes, all sexes. We bridged the
generation gap in the experience through music. Music was the connective tissue
in the context of the store experience.
Let’s get
back into that music narrative with great product storytelling and amplify it
in a way that is relevant for today’s consumer. We started with Jungle with our
linen campaign. We moved to Troye Sivan with a great music video around the
baggy and loose trend. Then, of course, the blowout with Katseye.
These
aren’t ads. Yes, you see the fleece because it looks incredible. But nobody’s
saying, “Oh, my God, it’s a great deal with a great price.” They’re saying:
“Did you see this? Did you feel this?” That is when you get emotional
connection to a brand.
We had
become more about price than product. More about stuff, not storytelling.
If you’re
focusing on entertainment, how do you measure success?
We have
dashboards everywhere. I think we just turned one off when you walked in
because our business flashes on an hourly basis on my screens.
We have
dashboards that measure brand love, people searching more for our brand and
brand attributes that we test and roll out to see how consumers are feeling.
Does the
focus on entertainment hedge against all of the uncertainty in the world?
To some
extent, in the world that we live in, we should be that great distraction in
some cases, that pleasant place that you love to go to. That ultimately makes a
brand stronger, to essentially navigate more complex times. There’s always
something that we have to worry about.
How
worried are you about consumer spending? We’re in California right now. I
passed a gas station where it was about $6 per gallon.
That was
a good deal.
Most
retailers say that consumers remain resilient, but are you prepared for
spending levels to drop?
We have a
fantastic portfolio that addresses all income cohorts.
We have
quality products that should last, in some cases, for generations. You’re
buying it for the long haul. But we do recognize that we need frequency: We
need to stay fresh. We need to stay new.
There are
a lot of businesses that will start to pull back on quality, right? We’re not.
You’re
from New York City, right? Tell me about your upbringing.
My
parents were both in retail, real estate and fashion. My mom was more on the
creative side, and my dad was more on the financial and operations side.
My
grandparents were also in fashion and retail. They were Holocaust survivors. My
grandmother sewed and had her own line in department stores. My grandfather ran
the factory, so they had a small business that did very well. I remember
growing up and running around the factory floor.
What’s a
piece of advice that you received that you still reflect on today?
Retail is
detail. There’s not a single day where everything goes right, but at the end of
that day you could still say that it was a great day.
Ultimately
you’re firefighting on a minute-to-minute basis. You’re constantly in motion.
That sense of detail orientation is probably an attribute that’s carried with
me from my earliest days in the industry.
It’s time
for the lightning round. What’s on heavy rotation on your music playlist right
now?
Who I
really like right now is Sombr. I saw him at Coachella.
What’s
the last thing you asked A.I.?
To
decipher an object that somebody sent me from a museum and I wanted to know
which museum it was from.
How often
do you check Gap’s stock price?
I
probably check it twice a day. I do a morning check and at the end of the day.
When you
need to feel most confident, what are you wearing?
I love
our hoodies, and not only our fleece hoodies at Gap but Banana Republic’s
cashmere hoodie. Depending on the vibe, I would go with a fleece or cashmere
hoodie. Then I usually throw on a Banana Republic trucker jacket.
I wear
all of our brands. I have worn a few sweatshirts from Athleta.
If you
had to explain each of your brands in exactly one word, what would it be? Let’s
start with Old Navy.
Family.
Gap?
Individuality.
Banana
Republic?
Adventure.
Athleta?
I’m going
to go with empowerment.
Jordyn
Holman is a Times business reporter covering management and writing the Corner
Office column.
