There wasn't much a panic when the Gap announced on Monday that it would be shuttering 175 of its stores — or one-fourth of the number of stores North America — as the company tries to “restore the brand,” according to Gap CEO Art Peck. And there’s definitely no reason to cry: Gap stores are pretty much universally awful. No matter where in the country, they seem to have been ransacked by little gremlins who muss up those perfectly folded stacks of T-shirts; tangle up the straps of those gray bras so they’re impossible to get off the hanger; create piles upon piles of tried-on, discarded jeans that may or may not ever make it back on the sales floor.
Plus, is there anything less cool than the Gap? I’m actually really trying to think of something and can’t. The Gap is just like, ugh. The Gap.
But maybe that’s a reason to buy Gap clothes. Here are five reasons why I have justified buying pretty much all of my summer clothes at the Gap:
1) No one you know will have these clothes.
If you are looking for exclusivity, buying your clothes from a place where no one you know shops is an easy win. The days are long gone where everyone shows up to work looking like a Gap window display.
2) It pays not to leave your house.
You can just avoid the stores (ie, use the internet). And you should, because pretty much everything at gap.com is 40% off all the time. (If you buy one thing at full price at some point you seem to be grandfathered into a constant stream of discounts that make everything, even the pricier stuff, ridiculously affordable.)
3) There’s really some cute stuff on that website.
This is based on commentary offered to me on my clothes, not on my own aesthetic judgment. Colleagues, friends, even a stranger or two have asked me where I got this dress (which I own in black and white). And the t-shirts are still good.
4) They do specialty sizes.
Big or small, they have it. That said, my own experience is that the Gap is a little bit flattering in their sizing (like, a full numerical size smaller than it should be).
5) You can constantly buy new underwear.
Don’t you always need more underwear? I do. So as you’re checking out with your dress-that-looks-like-a-pillowcase buy some of these. Or these. Not these (thongs are out).
Hillary Frey is a reluctant news junkie and the director of global news operations at Fusion. In a past life, she was a culture and books editor. She's also a karaoke junkie.