Did anyone else notice all the new American Apparelesque Gap advertisements all over the Mission? Of course, they forgot to get models that look like they would try to score some smack at 16th and Mission after the shoot, but we’ll let that slide.
Take a hint everyone: it’s time to abandon your custom jeans for a pair made by kids in Asia from a company on the ass-end of a fad.
All my jeans are gap. They have the fit down. And they have been doing jeans since before you were born, smart ass.
oh BURN
Actually, depending on how old Kevin is, he might have been born before Gap started making their own jeans.
For the first ten years or so The Gap was a retail store that specialized in carrying Levi’s and OTHER brands.
I just find it so boring people who sit around in SF and trash gap. BORING. I bet one quick spin around their rent controlled apartment would find hundred of items made overseas, and likely not in factories nearly as well run as the ones gap uses. Its just the essence of tired cliche, gap bashing.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/29/business/main3422618.shtml
Or how about: “In short, the maligned suppliers of Nike, Gap and Wal-Mart encourage governments to educate women, give women a reason to stay in school and pay them well by local standards. Our study presents a picture of textile and footwear plants that’s far less harrowing than the sweatshop stereotype and more compatible with surveys in dozens of countries that find female workers feel they benefit from the factory jobs.”
http://www.dallasfed.org/research/eclett/2006/el0603.html
I actually prefer Levi’s to the Gap jeans, but that is another successful local company that people love to hate.
To give you another perspective, as an actual Gap Supplier – Gap really does make a conscious effort to audit factories and have a partnership with them. That being said, the problem lies in the partnerships that those factories make with local suppliers – ultimately trying to save some cash by farming out portions of the production process to Joe Smoe down the street, who might/might not use child labor or other dubious methods for production (http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Gap-And-Levi-Promise-Action-After-Manufacturing-Operations-Exposed-As-Causing-Pollution-In-Africa/Article/200908115351904).
Gap can’t manage these entirely – so leaves the factory to manage them. And that’s where the problem lies.
Also – India in general is by the worse as far as quality/factory compliance goes. They just don’t care and are well undercutting the competition as far as pricing…because of their process and production.
I only buy limited-edition Japanese denim purchased for an affordable $300 at Self Edge. They are hand-sewn by Filipina women using surgical thread that is guaranteed to dissolve by the third washing.
I pity those bourgeois Marina denizens have to buy their $40 jeans from some local company.
Ha! I actually like self edge. Its a very cool little shop, but I hear your irony. I would just say that big picture, the big companies have been part of the solution for a long time. If you want to see nasty, go to a Chinese fireworks factory. Now THAT is nasty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut1tbkIUX38
God love youtube.
Wrong.
Successful non-profit pressure, international standards and litigation have been part of the solution for the long time. Companies behave this well because they are forced to and behave badly when they are not.
I really did think those ads were AA ads also. The GAP has changed its branding so much and so often its been hard to folow. remember the swing dancing?
the essence of a successful company is one that can refresh their marketing based on the needs of their market.
gap, in all reality, is a very socially responsibly company who prides itself in sticking to strict labor standards overseas…as well as offering support to many of the communitites it does business in.