By ERIC WILSON
TO anyone tracing the ups and downs of Gap's fortunes over the last decade, it is striking how often the periodic sales dips have bounced like a Ping-Pong ball, attributed first to "too much fashion," then to "too many basics." The company's latest difficulty in selling collections that emphasized style over khakis led to the sudden replacement last week of the designer Pina Ferlisi with Charlotte Neuville, most recently of the more tepid retailer New York & Company. Reading between the lines, Gap's fashion message for spring 2006 is that basics are back.
That was the case at a fashion show on Monday for Gap's upscale division, Banana Republic. It opened with safari jackets and closed with a series of zebra prints that recalled the kind of clothes the company once sold from an illustrated catalog, before it was acquired by Gap in 1983 and transformed into a walk-in wardrobe for the urban careerist.
That feeling was intentional, said Deborah Lloyd, the executive vice president for design. The collection was inspired by Peter Beard's photos of his trips through Africa, a familiar subject for longtime Banana Republic customers.
"This was really about going back to our beginnings," Ms. Lloyd said.
But Ms. Lloyd updated her basics with a touch of style (and espadrille wedges, the shoe of the season) by looping a high-waisted belt through a classic khaki pencil skirt; tucking the hem of a billowing crochet camisole into pinstripe shorts; and restyling a winner of a white cotton trench to the scale and weight of a blouse.
Her colleagues at Gap might argue that reviving best sellers from seasons past is not a fashion cure-all. Ms. Lloyd just showed them how.
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