Fast fashion is a term that you may recognize if you are a trendy person that likes to be up-to-date with your clothing, shoes, and accessories bearing in mind your budget. Of course, you bring your A-game when getting dress, and denim will always be your passion. But, if you are, then your closet might be full of labels that say “Old Navy” on their back. And that means that you may well know who is behind your beloved brand. If that is the case, we encourage you to keep reading and discover some new facts about Zara and its owner you might not know. And also we’ll let you know Who owns Old Navy?
Old Navy is owned by the parent company Gap Inc. It is a multinational clothing company from the United States launched in 1969 and constituted by four of the biggest brands in fashion retail in the world founded by Don and Doris Fisher. Among some of their brands, we can also find Banana Republic, Gap, Athleta, and the recent acquisition of Janie and Jack.
The global clothing brand has thousands of company-operated stores, hundreds of franchise stores, and a well-established growing presence in e-commerce. It has around 3,000 company stores worldwide and 500 franchise stores with a presence across 44 countries. Old Navy was founded in 1994 to recreate a successful Gap Warehouse prototype to provide customers with a less expensive version of the chain. Today its headquarters lie in San Francisco, California.
With a strategy of focusing on a signature style, the brand has been known for its comfortable and stylish jeans located in their grocery-like stores. With a similar layout and the usage of shopping carts, Old Navy imitates the array of traditional grocery stores, taking into advantage the impulse shopper by placing shelves near the checkout lines, increasing their revenue thanks to the waiting periods.
Their target audience, according to Bartleby, is based mainly on young people that are price-sensitive and fashion-forward. The ages round between 23 and 35 years old with a planned out family cycle. It starts with young teenagers, then single women and men on a budget, and married couples with children. By 2018 90% of their customers were women. The main area of sale is textile, clothes are their star products, but they also offer a selection of shoes, accessories, beauty, and wellness, and home and family distributed in ten areas: women, women’s plus, men, girls, boys, toddler, baby, maternity, jeans, gender-neutral. Jeans are still their main category that you can find in various styles, going from boot cut to skinny, original to super skinny, and four different washes.
Old Navy is one of the biggest brands with a famous trajectory inside a huge group of brands within the fashion retail industry, meaning that there is a lot more than meets the eye on who owns Old Navy. So instead, we should be asking a whole new set of questions: What is Gap Inc? Who owns Gap Inc? And what are the names behind it?
What is Gap Inc?
Gap Inc. is an American fashion retail company founded by Don and Doris Fisher to make it easier for the customer to find a pair of jeans that fit. From there, it has grown inside the market and achieve more than 3,000 stores, being Gap and Old Navy the front runner brands. According to the global print, by the end of Q1 of 2021, Gap was in the first place with 1,468 stores, followed by Old Navy with 1,259 stores, in third position Banana Republic that owns 606 stores, and lastly Athleta with 207 stores.
The company started in 1969 selling men’s Levi’s jeans and record tapes. It was five years later when the first gap-label product appeared in the market. Then, in 1983 the company took a huge step, and they bought the Banana Republic, a theme retail store in Mill Valley, California. The expansion of Gap Inc. was imminent, and in just a few years, it went public on the stock market at $18 per share, offering 1.2 million shares.
Between 1986 and 1990, Gap Inc. launched the first GapKids store and babyGap, together with its iconic Pocket-T and the recognizable square blue logo. They also started opening their first store outside the United States, starting with several stores in London and Vancouver. In 1994 the first Old Navy store opened in California, starting as Gap Warehouse. But later on, they decided that the brand should have its own identity and was named after a Parisian bar. In a few years, they already had the first Manhattan flagship store and reached the benchmark of $1 billion in sales, turning into the first retailer to accomplish this.
It was after the 2000s when they began incorporating much of its brands. First, Athleta, a brand launched in 1998 as a women’s activewear catalog, was bought in 2008 by Gap Inc. Later on, in 2013, Intermix was acquired, a more luxury approach. Next, Hill City, with a focus on men’s lifestyle, was launched in 2018. And lastly, the most recent brand that Gap Inc. obtained was Janie and Jack in 2019, approaching a younger clientele being a children’s store. But as part of their Power Plan 2023, the last brands, Hill City, Janie and Jack, and Intermix, were either close or sell other retail companies.
Nowadays, Gap Inc. is putting all of its efforts into being sustainable, equal, and inclusive. They also thrive on giving their consumers the best digital shopping experience by partnering with Afterpay in 2020, known for their “pay later” business model.
Meet Donald and Doris Fisher
Donald and Doris Fisher were a couple of business partners and philanthropists who co-founded Gap Inc. Donald was born in San Francisco, California, he had his first approach with the retail world when, while being the owner of the Capital Park Hotel in Sacramento, he leased space for a showroom for the giant Levi Strauss & Co. Doris was also born in San Francisco, California but even though her devotion was more into art, a passion she shared with his late husband, together they built the gigantic Gap Inc.
The idea of starting their own company was led by their personal experience of trying to look for the perfect jeans that fitted Don. In the beginning, they tried to partner with Levi’s store manager, but after his rejection, they moved forward on opening their first retail store, selling Levi’s jeans and records. Donald was CEO until 1995, he then became a board member until 2004, and after that, he served as the company director and Chairman Emeritus until he died in 2009.
With a humanitarian and altruistic mindset, the Fishers made the most out of Gap Inc. by being really invested in their communities’, employees’, and customers’ work and lives, committing to education and art. In addition, they are acclaimed for their vow in public school reformations, with the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), a non-profit network of colleges that educates students from early childhood to high school.
Among other affinities, they were contemporary art collectors. They collected over 1,100 pieces that figured big names like Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, and Roy Lichtenstein. This collection was later loaned to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Doris Fisher, also named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes. According to Forbes, the Fisher Family was featured in 2020 in position number 38 as America’s richest family with a net worth of $8.9 billion.
How is Old Navy positioned among the retail stores?
Old Navy has being positioned side by side with leading retail companies like H&M and the Inditex Group. Despite being not in a top position, they are still the beloved retail store in the US.
In 2012, regardless of its previous success, the company reached its peak and was crumbling. The executives figured out that H&M was their biggest competitor decided to recruit Stefan Larsson, then Head of Global Sales, to become the global president of Old Navy. With his first action, he hired Reebok, Nike, North Face, and Coach to design a new line of clothing. By 2015 they reached a revenue of $6 billion in the states. In 2018, three years after the big achievement, the company again started to decrease sales compared to the previous years. It was then when the firm decided to spin off Old Navy into a separate company. This plan was shattered due to the cost and complexity of the operation.
By now, the critical period of Gap Inc. is being recovered by Old Navy and Athleta, which by 2023 are expected to account for 70% of the company’s sales. Both brands moved quickly regarding face mask usage during the pandemic, which resulted in 4% of the sales. In the same order of ideas, Old Navy, with its comfortable clothing and affordable prices were a huge success when this apparel category was the first choice whilst in confinement.
More on Old Navy
As we came to learn, Old Navy is part of the most successful fashion retail brand to the present, having revenue of about $8 billion by October 2020. The brand that started as a way to sell more accessible clothing became the biggest brand under the world’s textile firm, Gap Inc. Offering fast access to men, women, and kids, they focused on fast fashion, getting all their designs quickly into the stores and taking advantage of the trends at reasonable prices.
With six flagship stores in San Francisco, Mexico City, Chicago, New York, Seattle, and Washington, their growth has been exponential since the start. Settling on brick-and-mortar shopping and their online stores greatly impact selling the items at a lower price.
As leaders in the fast-fashion market, they haven’t set their minds apart from their equality, empowerment, and belonging values. Associating with different non-profit movements and creating ongoing educational programs ensures their commitment to a better future with accessible fashion through opportunity, inclusivity, and sustainability.
