Four Years Later, Gap Returns to London

Gap is turning the lights back on in its London flagship.

After it closed all its UK locations in a broad restructuring in 2021, the American brand is reopening its store in London’s Covent Garden neighbourhood on Friday. The new shop is one of three planned: Another in Wembley and one in the Westfield shopping centre in White City open their doors in December.

The space in Covent Garden has sat dormant since Gap closed the store, and is typically papered over with Gap advertising. The company owns the building, and because it didn’t have to pay tax on the location if it wasn’t operating or leasing it, it chose to keep it shut until it was ready to return, according to Mark Breitbard, president and chief executive of the Gap brand. Now it is.

“We’ve just gone through so much of the reinvention and revitalisation of the brand, and we’ve come through to the momentum side,” Breitbard said.

Gap has been in the midst of a multi-year turnaround that began to show results after parent company Gap Inc., which also owns Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta, hired former Mattel executive Richard Dickson to revive the long-struggling label. It tapped designer Zac Posen to rework its clothes; has amped up its collaborations and marketing, scoring a big win with its viral Katseye campaign; and introduced a new upscale line, GapStudio.

The efforts are paying off. In August, the Gap brand reported its seventh consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales.

“The store has been the last part — to get the physical experience to feel like it has caught up to the rest of the brand,” Breitbard said.

The 3,250 square foot, two-story London location is based on the design blueprint Gap unveiled in its Flatiron store in New York last year. Rails lining the front of the store let Gap display clothing on hangers rather than having stacks of folded garments, which Breitbard said creates a more elevated feel and helps show off the improved quality of the items. There are large screens around to display videos, and towards the back stretch shelves of denim in an array of different fits.

Upstairs, there’s a nook that Gap tried to give a more distinctly British feel, with a slightly dressier offering. On the far side of the floor, a wall is filled with one of Gap’s most recognisable items, its hoodies. There’s also an area where Gap sells records from London music shop Honest Jon’s, a nod to Gap’s original store in San Francisco, where it sold records and denim.

The space embodies the unfussy, nostalgic vibe of the Gap brand today.

Gap hasn’t been totally absent from the UK since closing its stores. It has continued to sell online and maintains a corner in the Oxford Street location of British retailer Next, with which Gap has a joint venture and which runs Gap’s back-end UK operations, such as its logistics and inventory management.

The return to physical retail in London marks a milestone for the brand as it works to rebuild its business, and while Breitbard said Gap’s resurgence has its roots in the US — its home market and where it does most of its sales — it doesn’t end there.

“W​hat we see happening is happening globally,” he said. “When we look at the momentum story and the revitalisation story, it’s not just in North America.”