6 years ago I went on a trip with my wife to California and while in San Francisco we went to an Old Navy store. The store that we to was big and had a lot of clothes, cheap and just the look of the store was fresh although you could tell that the building it was in was a 100 years old. Something that neither of us could believe would ever look quite right in a mall.
Now we see Old Navy everywhere and in every mall. The exclusivity of the store is gone just like the fantastic food of Tony Romas disappeared the instant that it became a chain built on the blandness of process instead of the excitement of innovation and personal taste. I dread going into an Old Navy store the way that I dreaded the Gap 10 years ago. Everything is perfectly edgy or perfectly colorful and safe all at the same time. Marketing is slick and no detail to the branding goes unnoticed. My wife bought a couple of shirts I turned down looking at anything and on the way out we saw some kids pants on a rack with some sewn up holes, cute maybe buy in the definable style of Old Navy the entire rack of pants had the same sewn up holes in exactly the same places in all styles.
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