GQ‘s Best New American Designers To Design For The Gap

by Justin Fenner | 6:40 pm, February 23rd, 2012

Twins Ariel and Shimon Ovadia of Ovadia & Sons.

It’s official: The Gap is making a comeback. Because it wasn’t enough that the beleaguered American brand has recently announced a children’s collaboration with Diane von Furstenberg and a line of back-to-basics tees and sweaters, today it revealed that it would be working with GQ‘s Best New Menswear Designers in America on a capsule collection to be released this fall.

The magazine has been curating a list of the best new menswear talent in the country for the past six years, but this is the first time it’s hooked the list up with an opportunity to design something for a megabrand. In a lot of ways, the collaboration is a lot like (read: exactly the same as) what the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund does with its finalists — this year’s lot got a chance to design capsule collections for J.Crew. The 2007 finalists got a chance to redesign the white shirt for The Gap.

So who’s on the list? Guys you’ve probably heard of, like Mark McNairy (he’s been retooling the venerable Bass shoe brand for the last few years and also designs for Woolrich Woolen Mills) and guys you haven’t, like Todd Snyder and Ian Velardi. Johan Lindberg of BLK DNM (and J. Lindberg), Ariel and Shimon Ovadia of Ovadia & Sons, and Colin Tunstall, Josh Rosen and Morgan Collett of Saturdays NYC round out the list.

The New York Times points out that this group of designers isn’t exactly challenging what traditional menswear is. They’re just a group of guys, all of whom have started their own lines within the past year or two, who want to men the clothes guys wear more interesting and a little more modern. And we’re all for that. GQ‘s creative director Jim Moore, who helps select who goes on the list, says that bringing the message of these designers is the whole point of doing the collaboration.

“There is a whole new generation of designers who are not only creative, but they want to sell,” Mr. Moore said. “This puts the clothes in everyone’s backyard.”

And if all goes according to plan, it’ll put a lot of money in The Gap’s coffers, too. Well played. You can find out more about each of the designers who will be working with The Gap here.

[NYT, GQ]

gq GQ's Best New Designers In America The Gap