I saw this Doo.Ri for GAP dress in an actual GAP store when I was in NYC, and I was tremendously impressed — it was even cute on the hanger, and I loved the versatility of it — you could belt it with any number of scarves and ties and whatnot, wear it as a white dress all summer, and then (when it got grimy, as it eventually would) dye it black and wear it all NEXT summer. Genius!
So I went to the GAP site to check it out and the GAP site is now a horrific swirling mess of crappy Flash animations. You can't click anywhere, you can't find anything, it's all five second movies by wannabe web auteurs. I hate hate hate it. Catch me plunking down my money at a site like that. And to add insult to animation, the dress isn't even available online!
So if you're walking by a GAP anyway (check their site for the stores that even HAVE this "Design" line, not all of them do) and feel like checking for this dress, it's probably worth it — it's only $88. Otherwise, feel free to use my irritation at the complete suck of the GAP website as an excuse not to hand them any of your money.
A Dress A Day 
oh Geez! You were not kidding! I have never bought anything at the Gap. (and proud of it.) BTW I saw the wrap dress at Wal Mart — it is nice.
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Wait til you hit one of their stores – I went to the Bellevue, Washington store – and they’ve changed their lighting – or maybe the power was out? They had the ‘designer’ stuff up front.It was nuts – I felt like I should have brought a flashlight.You couldn’t see ANYTHING – I bought a bunch of what I thought were gray t-shirts and had to peer and guess at some other colors – too bad the gray was actually olive green, etc. etc. (I also saw a bunch of that Code Red stuff on sale – original price for a wrinkled white cotton shirt was $75?? it’s $12.99 now!)…They’ve killed their Forth & Towne division – after admitting most people over 20 have ‘disconnected’ with the GAP brand (two guesses why!) and they wonder why people are astounded?Been to Old Navy lately? GAP is going with their new shoe division – which sells the same brands as most stores and Zappos (which is a terrific place to buy shoes!)….When I shop at the GAP or Old Navy, I often wonder why I even come in, I don’t like cheap clothes with gibberish printed on them – which is all both stores seem to see in there – flappy, already-worn out clothes….
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That site hasn’t always been so painful, they must have hired someone new… Yikes! Flash catalogs are the WORST. How are you supposed to link your friends to what you’re looking at? Ugh.
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I bet that you could make something cuter and less irritating 😉
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Dear Erin,Don’t be a shy wallflower. Be assertive! Let it out! Tell us how you REALLY feel. 🙂
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The website does suck, and for a long time I couldn’t even open it with my Mozilla browser! It kept asking me to “update my browser”. I stopped trying.
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I get quite annoyed with their high-brow Anna-Wintour approved designer lines that are “limited edition, only available in NYC”– I mean, you’re “The Gap”– If I can’t buy it online, then what the hell is the point to advertising the product? I don’t lust after “the Gap” brand. I lust after Nanette Lepore, Milly and Betsey Johnson dresses. If I can’t get it from my local mall then screw it.
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I generally am not at all a fan of The Gap, but I went in the other day and bought one of their 70 dollar white dresses… and I love it.Who knew?
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Just can’t bring myself to buy anything from Gap, even though I reallylike their clothes….India
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As a woman of a certain size, not much would fit me at the GAP (from the woman’s side). But I must say I am now in love with the shirt dress! I saw Paulina Porvaskova (sp?) on Martha Stewart’s tv show on Monday as she looked fabulous!!! She was wearing an aqua colored shirt dress with 3/4 sleeves and a full shirt. Her brown hair was in a long, full, bouncy ponytail, and she was wearing very simple, elegant jewelry. She looked like a ’50s housewife and Barbie at the same time! If only I could look like that…..
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For what it’s worth, a similarly ill-conceived “update” has ruined the Martha Stewart website. Never, admittedly, a place for clothes, but it used to be useful for recipes. Not any more! If I may digress so far as to recommend a food blog, see http://www.latartinegourmande.com/
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May I ask–since you mention dyeing a dress–how you dye things and get a true black? No matter what I do, I seem to get a purply gray (which is pretty in its own right, but how much purply gray can one wear?)I get a lot of pants from the Gap, actually, because it’s really hard to find contemporary, decent-quality pants that fit me well (and I’m too fat for Banana Republic, sadly). But nothing else–back in their salad days in the nineties, I bought some great stuff there, though–basics that really were basic, good-quality stuff, and a really cute grey wool dress. They were really foolish to close Forth and Towne, though–it might have needed a little more marketing tweaking, but I dropped a couple hundred dollars each of the two times I was able to get to one.
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Black and scarlet are the two hardest colors to dye (I work with animal based fibers to spin and knit and those two are the worst). If you have minerals in your water at all, you will get off colors – the scarlet will come in as sort of tomato and the black will either be “rusty” or pearly or whatever. I think it takes high powered chemical dyes to do those. Blues, Greens, blue-based reds, browns..those are fairly easy to achieve at home. Not black. Not scarlet red.
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omigd, is the collar on that dress actually turned up? nooooooooo, please tell me that ‘s not coming back into vogue too. I never wanted to relive the 80s fashion, and now it seems i’m doomed to…maybe i’ve been in a closet and that’s been in for years….?
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Sarah Mae, I’m sending you to a couple of sites. PBurch seems to very, very knowledgeable about dyes:http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/dyelog/B1063361308/C1405331529/E1620969101/ true black dyePBurch recommends a remazol, which is a liquid fiber reactive dye.Also, the folks at Dharmatrading.com may be able to assist you; they cater to the dye-it-yourself trade. There are dyes which are very specific for plant fibers, protein fibers, and artificial fibers. A dye which works on one will not necessarily work on others. A garment may dye, but its thread may not.And here’s a professional dye service:http://www.dyeproservices.com/dyeing_to_black.htm dying to blackI note that the professional dyers have a lot of “don’t try to dye this black” on their recommended list.Years ago, I myself managed to completely wreck a perfectly lovely vintage jacket which was a beigey colour, trying to dye it black. It was total loss. Now ask me about the time I tried to strip colour out of two cashmere sweaters and ruined them!
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And that would be “remazol,” not “a” remazol. I tried to proof it!
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The gap site is really not all that hard to navigate. All you have to do is click on women and all along the left hand side it displays shirts, pants, or whatever, just like any other online store. But then again, I don’t really take the time to look at any other sections. I’m just excited that Thakoon is a guest designer!
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I know of web sites with the swirling bells and whistles. From the blog, I fully anticipated it when bringing up Gap.com, but didn’t find it. I don’t buy at the Gap as they don’t have what I want, but shopping at WalMart????!!! C’mmmmonnnn! Proud I don’t shop there either!
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As another woman of a certain size who loves the look of a shirtdress, I was really pleased to buy the Gap white shirtdress–it’s a nice quality cotton, and the swing cut and generous sash allows it to fit over my hips but still look stylish. I’m ambivalent about the Gap because of their past labor practices, but as a 41-year old woman I can attest that they sell decent basics that don’t all have logos or silly prints–I haven’t worn a logo or silly print since I was…well, I never did!
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