The other day I was reading a whole article in USA Today about how Gap, as a company, isn't really doing too well. In the article Paul Charron, former CEO of Liz Claiborn, says, "Over time, Gap has lost its original basis for differentiation of having high-quality basics at affordable prices. Everyone else provides basics. Many other people have very affordable prices. Everyone's got classics." Oh Gap, how you've fallen.

The whole thing made me think about a part in Douglas Coupland's book, Microserfs, a novel about a group of nerdy software programmers that leave Microsoft in the early 90's and start their own company. From page 268:

"It turns out that three of us visited the Gap independently of each other today, and when we found out, we goot spooked, and we analyzed the Gap, trying to make ourselves feel better about our vague mood of consumer victimization.

Susan says Gap is smart because they cut it both ways: "Kids in Armpit, Nebraska, go into a gap with pictures in their heads of Manhattan, Claudia Schiffer, and the Concorde, while kids in Manhattan go into the Gap with a pictures in their head of Armpit, Nebraska. So it's as though Gap clothesing puts you anywhere except where you actually are."

I figured that Gap clothing is what you wear if you want to appear like you're from nowhere; it's clothing that allows you to erase geographical differences and be just like everybody else.

We also figured that Gap clothing isn't about place, not is it about time, either. Not only does Gap clothing allow you to look like you're from nowhere in particular, it also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present either.

To break the trance that was forming, I shouted, "Gap check!" and everyone in the office had to guiltily 'fess up to the number of Gap garments currently being warn. Karla, the only Gap-free soul, for the remainder of the day wore the smug, victorious grin of one who has escaped the hungry jaw of bar-code industrialism. We Gap victims, on the other hand, fast-forwarded to an entirely McNuggetized world of dweeb-free, standardized consumable units."