The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "As part of a joint promotion between Gap Stores Inc. (NYSE: GPS) and the Big Board, traders will be outfitted with 1969 Premium Jeans from the retailer. Gap executives will ring the closing bell Friday, remotely from the company's San Francisco headquarters."
That's right: jeans of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It's part of Gap's effort to revitalize its image by offering more premium quality jeans -- at better prices than market leaders like True Religion (NASDAQ: TRLG) and 7 for All Mankind.
Right. Because what better way to make your jeans are hip than to get a bunch of overweight, overcaffeinated traders in a dying way of doing business to wear your product? Just sayin' ...
Gap has been threatening to reinvent itself and become hip again for well over a decade -- and it just hasn't happened. There have been so many ambitious PR campaigns (remember the white t-shirt ads in Vogue?) and reinventions, but for whatever combination of reasons, they all seem to have misfired and Gap remains a store with a lot of sales but no meaningful role in the fashion industry.
Maybe this will change that, but I seriously doubt it.
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