Gap Realizes “Normal” Clothing Isn’t A Trendy Selling Point, Offers Heavy Discounts

Dressing normal, even celebrities do it.

If you’re not the kind of person who pays attention to ironic trends that exist to serve only a select set of shoppers, the idea of “normcore,” or dressing in bland, boring, “normal” clothing is bound to be a bit silly. So while basic, everyday clothing is definitely a staple in many shoppers’ closets, Gap’s “Dress Normal” fall campaign may have gone a little too far into the normcore range for its own good, prompting the retailer to hold massive sales upon sales.

While it’s usual practice to sell off fall inventory ahead of the holiday season to make room for new offerings, Gap’s succession of escalating markdowns in the past week could point to a normcore backlash, reports BuzzFeed News’ Sapna Maheshwari, as sales have been in a slump recently.

With a weekend of 40%-off discounts, followed by an email on Monday to customers promoting 75%-off discounts, which preceded Tuesday’s “sale on sale” or another 25% off already marked-down items, it seems Gap is in an awful hurry to shed that ordinary look from its shelves.

“October is typically a sale month as retailers prepare for the holiday shopping season,” the retailer explained to BuzzFeed.

But Wall Street analysts point to another story, one that stars middle-of-the road consumers who don’t want to be normal, and for whom boring is definitely not trendy.

“The look and feel is minimalist and androgynous and supported by an ad campaign of ‘Dress Normal,’” Janney Capital Markets analyst Adrienne Yih-Tennant wrote in a Sept. 26 note cited by BuzzFeed. “While intended to be provocative and ironic, we believe the fall floor set may be, in a word, too ‘normal.’”

In other news, you can get pretty cheap basics at Gap right now. And in more other news, I absolutely despite the word “normcore.”

Gap Has A Problem: Its “Dress Normal” Campaign Is Way Too Normal [BuzzFeed News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist