My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous....
My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous.
Member since:08.07.2001
Reviews:594
Members who trust:255
Gap. For many people this name conjures up excellently choreographed adverts. We used to love these when we were at school. In fact mornings in the common room would often start off with “Did you see the new Gap ad last night?”. My dancing teacher loved them and many of our jazz numbers had an obvious Gap influence.
My first contact with the shop itself was when in Leicester - at this point there weren’t any northern branches near me. After visiting my sister at uni we went shopping and came across a little branch, in the Shires I think. Since these were the days when the height of fashion was being seen with a Gap bag, I had to buy something. And with those prices it had to be something small and cheap. I settled on this minute perfume. It was truly tiny – so much so in fact that the sales assistant asked if I needed a bag. Erm, hello? That was why I was buying it – surely she couldn’t think I really wanted a Sunshine Blossom Silver Spray? Still, I claimed it would be impossible to cope without one, and she handed over a smallish paper bag with the lovely letters emblazoned on the
side.
Fast forward 5 years or so and you come to today. Shopping in Preston for probably the first time since Boxing Day I saw the new (well new to me) branch of Gap and popped in. My first impressions were that it was a nice normal shop, similar to Mango or H&M in its layout. At the door was a security guard wearing a futuristic style headset. I thought this was just because she was security, but soon found most of the staff to be decked out in these. The shop was split into 3 sections – Menswear, Womenswear and Kids. Bypassing mens I peeped into the childrens section since I have been known, on occasion, to wear clothes meant for children, but then returned to the comfort of womenswear. Quite a lot of items seemed to be reduced, and even those at full price were no where near as expensive as I expected. Although I’m waiting for my trip to NYC to get my much-over-hyped –but-still-essential Gap fleece, I managed to find a few things to try on.
The changing rooms seemed to be unisex but were nice and quiet, and impeccable. Since I work in retail I know how hard it can be at times to keep on top of items dumped there. I was led to a cubicle at which point the sales assistant launched into his probably instructed and definitely OTT little speech “Hi, I’m *Michael, I’m here to help *you* and if there’s anything you need, just press this little button and I’ll come running” (* names have been changed to protect the all too perky…). Mid-change when I was standing there admiring my lovely new Austrian bra and wondering at the fact that you’d never get anything like that over here, there was a polite knock on the wooden door, followed by an “Is everything OK! Are you OK! Can I get you anything!” (! Not ? since they were more exclamations than questions). On leaving he took the ones I didn’t want and exclaimed “Thank you so much! We’ll see *you* again soon!”. I swear he wouldn’t have been out of place at Disneyland.
At the till point as the girl was waiting for my Switch to be authorized, she got all chatty, talking about what a good buy it was. I added before I could stop myself that I got a Gap bag too which was always good. She just laughed and gave me an extra one. Result :-).
So what’s the stock like? From what I could see it was pretty standard – jackets and skirts (though no dresses) and trousers (tons of jeans, but cords etc too) and tops. They didn’t seem to have shoes but they had some quite nice if a little preppy accessories. There were 3 or 4 racks of sales stuff, starting at about £5. I didn’t look at everything, but it appeared skirts were starting at £20 and T-shirts at £15. All in all, no where near as expensive as I’d have imagined.
The staff knew their stuff, and when I asked if there was a branch at the Trafford Centre (so that the next time an American tourist at work asks me, I’ll know where to send them) she told me exactly where to find it in the building, which was great. Maybe she’d worked there in the past, I don’t know, but I for one do not know the exact locations (other than towns) of all Debenhams for miles around.
The store was well laid out, and they’d made great use of all the space available. Clothes were in size order and near suitably complementing items so you could get a whole outfit sorted without moving very far. It was nice and light and airy, and the till points and changing rooms were well signed.
All in all a pleasant surprise and well worth a visit so long as you can put up with the wholesome all American (apart from the fact they were British) staff and their perkines
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Classic items, quality products, good choice and price Disadvantages: Number of stores, some items pricey, can be a bit of a jumbe sale at sale time
hvmills18 28.08.2001 (28.08.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Gap (Shop)
Advantages: excellent clothes,colours, great customer service, good storelayout Disadvantages: prices are often high, American pricing can be difficult to translate into english sizing
judithritchie 24.12.2000 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Gap (Shop)
Advantages: Classic items, quality products, good choice and price Disadvantages: Number of stores, some items pricey, can be a bit of a jumbe sale at sale time
hvmills18 28.08.2001 (28.08.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Gap (Shop)
Sep 10th, 2001
very helpful by (100%):
