What’s Everyone Buying at Gap Right Now?

Tops

Let’s get to the obvious: “You might notice it bears a striking resemblance to the Flore Flore Dewi Tank,” Wall Street Journal art editor Alexandra Citrin-Safadi says. But she thinks Gap’s is a little bit sexier for the stretch. (It’s in Gap’s Modern line of cotton-modal blends.) “It is a low V, and I am probably not wearing this one to work, although someone with a more modest chest might feel differently,” she says. “I’m wearing a bra either way.” It’ll be her going-out top this summer. “I wore it out to dinner and will probably wear it again for my birthday party, which you know is the ultimate vote of confidence,” she says.

For Salena LeDonne, content strategist and writer of the newsletter Sincerely Salena, the perfect summer tank has to be something she can wear everywhere: “to the beach, to dinner, to sweat in my apartment.” That’s why she has a few Modern Tank Tops, which are a good length on her five-foot-one frame. “The last thing I want on a hot summer day is fabric bunching around my waist,” she says. In petite sizing, it’s “not cropped but not not cropped.” Thanks to the same cotton modal that’s in the Modern V-Neck Tank, her Modern Tank Tops are very comfortable. “They don’t feel clingy to me; if anything, I’m clingy to them,” she says.

Artist Melly Wirtes regularly purchases Modern Crewneck T-Shirts. “I have white, navy, and gray, and I just replaced my black,” she says. “I just think it’s a really solid, quality basic. It’s affordable. It’s reliable. It’s layerable.” Compared to her other favorite T-shirt, Lululemon’s Hold Tight Short-Sleeve, it’s “soft and stretchy but not thin.” The difference has to do with the fabric composition: Gap’s has 58 percent cotton, 38 percent modal and 4 percent elastane to Lululemon’s 94 percent modal and 6 percent elastane. She takes a large and could get away with a medium, “but it’d be more form-fitting.” She’s six-two, and it helps that Gap offers a tall-specific size (her “only gripe is you have to buy tall or petite online”) that she can tuck in. It’s “what I reach for when the mood is I do not have the capacity to conceptualize an outfit right now,” she says.

As part of a “lifelong hunt to find the perfect T-shirt,” brand consultant Lucia Litman has tried at least five different ones from Gap — and this was her favorite. “I liked it the best mainly because of the fit,” she explains. “This has the perfect blend of clinginess and drapey-ness.” The sleeve length is just right, too. “A cap sleeve is my enemy and has me rushing to book pilates classes, and longer sleeves I can find unflattering,” she says. “This is a perfect middle ground. It won’t be tight on your arms but won’t drown them either.”

“If I had to choose one button-down for the rest of my life, it would 100 percent be a cotton-poplin Big Shirt,” says Anna B. Albury, designer and co-founder of coolstuff.nyc. “It’s one of those pieces that remains in my closet through all seasonal swaps.” It doesn’t make her feel too hot — even “when commuting on heated subway cars.” Albury finds any excuse to get a Big Shirt (or men’s Organic Cotton Poplin Classic Shirt) in her “favorite cotton-poplin fabric” — especially if a new stripe is available. Isabelle Conner, a VP of integrated marketing at Skinfix, also has a few Big Shirts and notes they can vary in sizing: “I find the stripes run a bit smaller and the solids run a bit bigger.” Gena Kaufman, a social-media director, prefers the Big Shirt in her usual medium. “It’s probably oversize enough that I could size down to a small, but the oversize fit is kind of the point,” she says. “I enjoy the roominess in the chest that avoids any unpleasant button-gaping issues.” (Kaufman mentions a striped version she has “felt thicker and less prone to immediate wrinkles” than the solid white she tried. Do with that information what you will.)

Or there’s the 100% Linen Oversized Shirt. Albury wears it when she needs to “feel put together in a long-sleeve shirt but still be able to breathe in 90-degree New York City summer weather.” Compared to the Big Shirt, it has a “touch more slouch.”

Sable Yong, author of Die Hot With a Vengeance, is on her third CashSoft cardigan. She likes that CashSoft is machine-washable (instructions say to wash on a gentle cycle and lay flat to dry) and that there’s not too much shrinkage or shape-warping involved. Her other CashSoft cardigans haven’t gotten very pill-y after nearly a year and a half of wear, either.

Officially, this is the Strategist’s designated “boyfriend” sweater. The best thing about it is its weight. It can easily be layered (as many of us on the team can personally attest to). Kaufman thinks it’s about as all-season as a knit gets. “I really like it as a spring layering piece thrown over my shoulders when it’s still a little chilly,” she says. Phoebe Fry, writer of the newsletter The Dish, even packed it for a February trip to Hawaii. “It’s the sweater I reach for when I want something easy, breathable, and comfortable,” Fry says.

Bottoms

“Every summer I pick up an armful of linen basics for my adventures,” Conner says. She’s thinking this linen-cotton wide-leg pant would “look perfect for grilling on my friends’ upstate porch or wandering around Marseille with my best friend from college, as I plan to do later this summer.” Gap’s linen “can survive being crushed in a suitcase, tied to a beach chair, and doused in ocean water,” after all. And the love for Gap linen runs in her family — her mom goes for the tops and sister the sets.

Jill Singer, co-founder and editor of Sight Unseen and writer of the newsletter Counter Space, describes Gap’s “Matching Sets” section in the women’s department as “catnip for me,” especially as you can easily decouple the pieces. She matched a Poplin Boatneck Shell Tank Top with a Poplin Drop-Waist Maxi Skirt. The top is cropped and the skirt has slits on both sides, which is “nice to show a bit of leg, and it’ll be even nicer when it gets really hot — built-in wardrobe A/C,” she says. This past April, she packed both for Salone del Mobile in Milan. The skirt was the only thing she wore twice: first on Sunday to Alcova and Dimore Gallery — “It was hot that day, but the outfit was breezy” — then later that week, with a Tibi pullover, to Bar Basso.

“They’re my favorite Gap jeans,” says saloon founder Julia Harrison. “They’re also my favorite jeans.” Harrison has secondhand embarrassment saying they’re not like other jeans, but they “feel distinctly un-jean-ish.” This might have something to do with where they sit on her hips: “not low-rise, not high-rise, just under a mid-rise.” Harrison adds, “I can’t do the high-rise taper-leg ’80s thing, it makes me hate my belly and also need to pee, like, the whole time I’m wearing it.” But being low-slung has its perks. Katie Stone, writer of the newsletter Plant Based and a “self-described victim of the high-waisted trend of yore” came to appreciate the flexibility of the rise — especially after “a big meal.” Marie K. Stotz, a filmmaker and 99 Minutes founder, could even throw the jeans on post-yoga to meet friends for a drink and a plate of pickles at Fanelli. “As a millennial, it took me a while to give up skinnier jeans,” Stotz says. “They feel very ’90s supermodel off-duty” — or, at the very least, “Christy Turlington on a go-see.”

Conner wears a pair of Easy Horseshoe Jeans on her office days. “I like to sit cross-legged at my desk, and they allow me the crucial flexibility and freedom to do so,” she says. And Kaufman has convinced at least three friends to buy a pair for themselves. “I’m a pretty staunch high-rise loyalist and I find this mid-rise very wearable,” she says. “To me, they feel more relaxed than overtly barrel shaped, and they’re just so comfortable.”

Activewear, Loungewear, and Underwear

“I can’t necessarily wear a shrunken sweatshirt per se, but this is nice and closely cropped while still being roomy,” Singer says.

“It almost reminds me of something I’d have worn as a kid,” says Brianna Schubert, an editor and writer of The Mood Board newsletter. (Plus she has “a bit of a stripes addiction.”)

Yong appreciates the “generous underarm (less sweat) and wide hood that doesn’t make your head look like a seal when it’s up” of the VintageSoft Wedge Zip Hoodie. If only it didn’t come with hoodie strings. “Who actually uses those? They just whip around and hit me in the face or get in the way of anything I’m trying to do. They’re a liability,” she says. At least “the inside hasn’t gotten all pill-y yet” after a few washes.

A recent addition to Sessum’s rotation are these track shorts. The cotton-nylon blend is “quite swooshy, so that might sway people who don’t like a noisy short,” she says. She’s planning on wearing them all summer, even when not working out. “They’re going to be great beach shorts or dancing shorts or farmers’-market shorts,” she says. They’re short shorts. “You can feel comfortable out in public, but they are definitely short,” she says.

Come summer, you’ll usually find Aisha Joshi, editor at Produce Parties and writer of the newsletter Babyteeth, in either a “breezy linen or cotton tank and a long skirt or athletic shorts.” Already she’s been wearing this little Gap tank all the time. She only just learned it was a pajama top (the matching pants are sold separately). But to be fair, she says, no one would ask, “Are those pajamas?” It reminds her of something from Dôen.

Journalist Hannah Benson might be “cotton-underwear oriented,” but she admits “it’s so rare to find cotton underwear with flair and comfort (unfortunately).” The Organic Stretch Cotton Shorty has that balance. It’s “meant to be seen, not necessarily by another, but by you in the mirror, dancing around like our forebears — Britney Spears in Crossroads and Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels,” she says. They’re fairly VPL-resistant too, “probably since they cover more than a bikini.” So far, she has three Organic Stretch Cotton Shortys — “a number that will only grow” with a “long underwear drawer life” ahead.

In prop stylist and set designer Alexandra Massillon’s underwear drawer are at least 20 pairs of Organic Stretch Cotton Hipsters. She replaced all her old underwear a few years ago and kept buying them. “I read that you’re supposed to throw out old and buy new underwear every year,” she says. “I don’t know if that’s, like, big-underwear propaganda, but I won’t throw out my Gap ones because they’re still going strong.” They’re “reliable organic cotton underwear that you, and probably your gynecologist, will love.”

Accessories