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04/20/2024 02:15:37 am

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Gap Closes 175 Stores, Cuts Jobs To Be More 'Vibrant'?

A Gap retail store is shown in San Francisco, California, May 8, 2013.

(Photo : REUTERS/ROBERT GALBRAITH/FILES) A Gap retail store is shown in San Francisco, California, May 8, 2013.

World-renowned clothing brand Gap announced Monday that it will be closing 175 of its stores across North America. The change will reportedly be part of a comeback plan for the brand which has had declined sales for five straight quarters.

Along with the stores closing, 250 corporate jobs will get cut as the business nurses its way back to growth. There will reportedly be additional closures at stores in some locations in Europe.

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The 250 corporate jobs will come largely from company headquarters.

Gap has been in struggle trying to entice customers who have other options in the form of Gap's competitors. A year ago, the brand saw a 5% but this year sales fell 10% in just the first quarter, according to USA Today.

"Some of the stores that we're currently in don't represent the best of our brand," according to global president for Gap Jeff Kirwan. "We want to make sure we don't have so much of a disparity."

"We're focused on offering consistent, on-brand product collections and enhancing the customer experience across all of our channels, including a smaller, more vibrant fleet of stores," he added.

The company has not yet made a statement with regard to the number of employees to become affected by the closures.

According to Spokesman Sean Piazza, the company is still in the process of defining which locations to close.

Piazza made no mention of how many employees are currently working at the corporate offices, but reports say the 250 job-cut will be coming from New York and San Francisco.

Gap hired Danish fashion designer Rebekka Bay in late 2012. She became popular for designing minimalist clothing for H&M, however her gray-and-black ensembles have been clashing with the "happy, all-American aesthetic" that Gap has tried to project. Bay's styles were criticized and called drab, causing Bay's termination in January as creative director, according to The New York Times.

Former head of design at retailer C. Wonder Wendi Goldman replaced Bay as Gap's head of product design and development.

This is the second time that Gap announced store closures. In 2011, the company has said it would be closing 21 percent of its stores in North America as well.

The 2011 decision was also headed by Peck, then president for Gap's operations in North America, reported Bloomberg.

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