Old Navy is basically supposed to be for the people who can't afford or don't want to buy clothes from Gap for whatever terrible reason that has lead to them shopping there. It's the off-brand, cheaper option among fellow company brands Gap and Banana Republic that was meant to keep shoppers in-house rather than defecting to other, less expensive competitors. And, according to The New York Times, it's actually killing it. Old Navy used to feel like the place to buy "commodities," the cheaper shit that you don't like to spend too much money on, but under new leadership it has blossomed into a fairly style-conscious brand.
This is all mostly because Old Navy poached key talent from one of those brands that was eating its fucking lunch, mainly H&M's former head of global sales Stefan Larsson. He's turned Old Navy into a $6 billion wrecking ball that makes up about 40% of Gap Inc. sales and almost as much as Gap and Banana Republic combined. While Old Navy struggled like many other spots in the late '00s and lost ground to fast fashion juggernauts like H&M and Zara, Larsson joined in 2012 and turned that shit around along with a crew brought in from the likes of Coca Cola, Coach, Reebok, The North Face and Nike to restructure its offerings, boosting sales 11% just late last year alone.
Perhaps most interestingly, it doesn't knock off high-fashion designs like its competitors, but instead works to bring its own renditions to shoppers while they're still current and has been wading into more activewear products as of late. With the right prices and quality combined, maybe Old Navy can close the gap (pun abso-fucking-lutely intended) on the rest of the pack. See you at the mall, fam.
