Gap Inc.: From a 1969 Levi's Shop to Old Navy, Drexler and Store Closures

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The first Gap store opened in August 1969 near San Francisco City College selling Levi's jeans and vinyl records, with no Gap-brand clothing at all. Founder Donald Fisher was a commercial real estate broker frustrated by department stores' messy denim stacks, and he copied The Tower of Shoes, a Sacramento retailer in a Quonset hut that won on guaranteed stock. Levi Strauss president Walter Haas Jr. passed him to advertising director Bud Robinson, who backed a test plan with overnight restocking from a San Jose warehouse and paid half the store's radio advertising. Doris Fisher named it after the generation gap, and the store sorted everything by size.

When department stores copied the layout, Gap began making its own jeans in 1973, launched private label lines in 1974, bought safari-themed Banana Republic in 1983 and launched Old Navy in 1994. Mickey Drexler defined the 1990s look but was ousted after a 29-month sales slump, took over J.Crew, and saw his own merchandise spark a rebound a month after he left. In October 2010 a Helvetica logo was dropped in under a week. The company faced labor allegations including a 1999 Saipan lawsuit settled for $20 million in 2003, a 2006 Jordan factory case and a 2007 BBC report on child labor in India. The 2020s brought a Yeezy deal that ended in 2022, 350 planned store closures, an exit from Russia, the closing of UK and Ireland stores and the sale of its China business to Baozun.

• Department stores of the 1960s grouped jeans by style, so shoppers often dug through piles only to find their size gone.
• Paul Pressler, who replaced Drexler, leaned on focus groups and resigned in 2007.
• A 2006 investigation found a Jordanian supplier factory had workers on shifts of up to 109 hours a week, unpaid for months.
• Gap invested $140 million in a Texas distribution center for e-commerce and handed its UK and Ireland web operations to Next.
• In July 2026 Gap opened its digital creator program to eligible employees, turning store staff into brand advocates.