Gap opened its first store in San Francisco in 1969.
Donald Fisher and Doris F. Fisher founded the company after struggling to find jeans that fit Donald properly. The original store sold Levi’s jeans, records and other items, and its name referred to the generation gap between younger consumers and their parents.
Gap later developed its own clothing collections and became a major American apparel retailer. Its early relationship with jeans is therefore central to the company’s origin, even though Gap is not exclusively a denim label.
The first store is often confused with the company’s later headquarters or with the founding dates of Gap’s sister brands. Banana Republic joined the Gap corporate family after Gap acquired it in 1983, while Old Navy launched much later, in 1994.