Apparently, navy is back in for fall.
Old Navy, that is.
Just minutes after Gap Inc. labelled the brand the sole bright spot on its dance card for the second quarter, delivering three percent comparable-store sales growth for the period while its other brands fell flat, an email blast from Refinery29 invited its readers to ‘Come Party With Us at New York Fashion Week,’, courtesy of none other than the city’s unlikely resident hipster, Old Navy.
In addition to free flights and a place to stay during every fashionista’s annual offensive street-style overload, one lucky winner will also be endowed with a $1,000 ‘dream fall wardrobe’, surely an incentive hoped to invoke a form of Saatchi & Saatchi-brand lovemark and affinity with the feted September affair, also likely to ensure our aspiring hipster will be exempt from any paparazzi-friendly moments as he or she trundles about in functional and affordable denim slacks and cotton wear.
Probably not helping the competition’s case was a Refinery29 summer intern’s decision to feature a leggy model clutching a Chanel clutch while idly surveying a convoy of iconic yellow New York cabs, dressed for the 100 degree late-summer heat in her $950 Jeremy Scott for Moschino sweater dress, a look you’re going to find a little more difficult to pull off with your new fashion checkbook, despite the $1000 bounty enabling you to acquire pretty much the entire Old Navy fall line.
That’s not to discount the label’s recent climb up the street-cred totem pole.
Last week, Gap reiterated its guidance for the full fiscal year of between $2.75 and $2.80 per share, despite continued weakness in sales of Banana Republic and as it announced plans to close 175 Gap stores in North America, and several in Europe.
Including the effect of strategic actions, the company’s second-quarter GAAP earnings slumped 30.6 percent year-on-year to 52 cents a share, due to delays resulting from the labor disruption at the West Coast ports, foreign currency headwinds and the strategic undertakings announced in June.
Comparable-store sales at Gap Global fell six percent for the period, compared with a five percent decline year-on-year, while Banana Republic Global sales dropped four percent, versus flat comps a year earlier. And, like the delight you experience after finding out that your college quarterback knocked up the prom queen and is since working the night shift at the local car yard following a court-appointed mandate to pay 95 percent child support, sales of the former acne-riddled teen, otherwise known as Old Navy Global, rose three percent, compared with a four percent rise in the prior-year quarter.
While the phrase, “No, I actually purchased this at Old Navy!” is likely a nice response from a hipster proudly denying the insinuation that his logoed t-shirt was instead snapped up for triple the price at college-grad favorite and flower headband, Coachella-friendly hippie, Urban Outfitters, you’re not likely going to have to provide verbal photo credits to fashion show photographers, street style bloggers anyone as you rock up to the back row of a show in your $36 long-sleeve shift dress, complete with its unflattering naval-grazing waistline.
Perhaps you select a sleeveless version of this forgettable work-appropriate shift dress, or maybe you take a fancy to its not-quite-blush offering, ending up looking like you lost your way to an interview for an $11-an-hour job on Sittercity.com, wanting to look #mature, but ending up looking clumsily mum-sy, as if you’re en route to your awkward work colleague’s VMA viewing party about to be visually assaulted by Taylor Swift indulging in some ‘mom-croon.’
If the mom-croon, defined by Tay-Tay as, “To sway, perform, and sing along to a song in an extremely emotional or sentimental way, possibly incorporating hand gestures. Eyes closed, lost in the music. The way your mom gets taken away by a tune from her high school days, glass of red wine in hand, shuffling around the room as her teenage kids roll their eyes in disdain,” is gaining serious online viral street cred, there’s every chance Old Navy could take the reigns as the unofficial sponsor of the newly minted downtown NYFW.
Unless of course you’re dropped off by your mom in her new Lexus, paying homage to the WME-IMG’s new auto sponsor for the shows it hosts at NYFW and Made Fashion Week, a far cry from the prestigious former thunder buddy, Mercedes-Benz.
One location better suited to the reverse-engineered Mercedes housing a redefined Toyota engine is your local prep school, highlighted by none other than Veep actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, perfecting the stereotypical uptight suburban working mom in a series of promotional back-to-school ads for…Old Navy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcOqiZPhwjo
Seeking to embarrass her preppy, overdressed son by being her brassy, bossy self on his first day, she encounters backlash and style advice from a swarm of Twilight-loving tweens, who share their budget-friendly Old Navy-inspired fashion tips, with some ‘old people’ advice on what to purchase at the after mentioned mass-market brand.
While Louis-Dreyfus steals the show with her impeccable comic timing, it’s hard to deny that her faux son actually looks a whole lot darn better in his stuffy suit than the swarm of overzealous students do in their coordinated street clothes, even if it is true that the V-neck sweater vest is a classic invitation to treat for aspiring middle-schooler bullies everywhere.
The commercial is the latest in a string of Louis-Dreyfus’ dapple with the brand, while fellow funny gals Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy and Debra Wilson have also starred in a number of ads for the retailer.
It’s easy to see how these ads fit solidly in the brand’s playlist of silly skits featuring prominent female comics, but it’s a tad more difficult hard sell to convince the serious fashion folks’ view Old Navy with a less critical and discerning editor’s eye.
With the new fashion week format expected to redefine the prestige many argued was watered-down by the influx of Instagram bloggers at the mass-market slaughterhouse that was the Lincoln Center, some have posited the case that a designer’s ability to instantly publish their show online defeats the cost-benefit of inviting 350 people to view their show, on location, for free.
Old Navy’s marketing team may be in overdrive with prongs in fashion week, back-to-school and the effect of all-round back slapping following its redeeming role in Gap’s latest lackluster result, but, whether this will flow through to an elevated street-style cred come fall, remains to be seen.
While the brand’s latest ad campaign rings true to its claim of “Making current American fashion essentials accessible for every family”, the chances that the Refinery29 NYFW contest winner of reciting the core value of, “Imagining a place where you can find all of your wardrobe “must-have’s” at prices you can’t believe,” is as likely of them attending the next one.
But at least they’ll have their mom-croon-friendly dance attire for the next parent’s spritzer spring/summer 17.
