This invigorating vibrancy and Frisco flair is seeping into Gap Inc. as we know it today. The clothes, whether they’re from Posen’s elevated Gap Studio or cheerful Old Navy, are tailored yet relaxed and effortless, and sometimes boast searing saturations. He brings up a flamboyant striped chunky turtleneck sweater from 2001 and says that he is releasing his own Zac-ified reissue. There was also that fantastical ROYGBIV addict Christopher John Rogers x Old Navy collection this past April. And when Posen worked on his first Met Gala as the brand’s creative director, with actor Da’Vine Joy Randolph in 2024, he designed her a denim gown in crisp light and dark blues, inspired, he says, by the coloration of San Francisco Bay. (This year he dressed Kendall Jenner in a winged twist on the classic Gap white tee.)
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Whether on the street or at the office, Posen is excited by the unbridled sartorial creativity in San Francisco, from the loud to the demure. Yes, there are sometimes public displays of nudity, which he sweetly describes as “very eccentric people that proudly exist in their full freak-flag regalia.” But he notes that “there’s also a general California casual, laid-back elegance—a kind of Western minimalism” to San Francisco style. He describes going to the opera and wondering what people’s outfits are: “Is it Ann Demeulemeester? Is it Yohji? Rick? There is this understated quality of a double-faced boiled wool or the clean white ease of the perfect T-shirt. [But] I would never call it quiet because [San Franciscans] are not quiet people.”
As for Posen’s personal style evolution by way of SF: “I’ve never worn more linen in my life!” What more could you expect from a Gap guy in the easy, breezy City by the Bay?
This article appeared in the July/August 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.