IndexTheoretical BasisRetro Branding through Retro Fashion DesignSymbolic References Reinforcing Brand Heritage and AuthenticityIn recent years, fashion trends considered obsolete and horrible have made a comeback. From denim to big tennis shoes, many trends resurfaced and new fashion collections began to incorporate designs inspired by products that fashion brands had already released on the market twenty or thirty years earlier. Tommy Hilfiger has released nineties-inspired jackets and it's not uncommon to see people in fishnet tights or with a fanny pack. A very recent example of this reemergence of old fashion trends is Gap's limited collection of archival reprints from the 1990s. Launched in early 2017, it featured a lot of stonewashed denim, classic t-shirt and hoodie designs, and had an overall grungy look. The designs are subtle and don't look like much but they are retro, referencing a time when the brand made more money from their products and was more relevant in the industry. A campaign video called Generation Gap and directed by Kevin Calero featured the descendants of models who wore their respective designs in the 1990s. Naomi Campbell also appears in the same outfit she wore in a 1992 commercial. The campaign isn't particularly surprising that '90s fashion is making a comeback, but it's curious how Gap references and relies on its '90s ads. The purpose of this article is to analyze how, despite reproducing old designs, Gap's campaign is adapted to the present while remaining aware of the past, and how Gap emphasizes the stability and authenticity of the brand. First, in this article we will look at the definitions of the term retro and distinguish it from nostalgia. Next, we will cover retro brand and brand heritage marketing strategies which both also address brand authenticity. On this basis, this article will then analyze how Gap has implemented these marketing strategies in its re-release collection and how they coordinate the brand's past with the present based on aspects of fashion design and the campaign video's references to previous campaigns. . Finally, the article will briefly discuss how Gap uses nostalgia to market their collection. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Theoretical Background The terms retro and nostalgia are often used interchangeably in literature and everyday usage. For example, Guffey defines retro as considering the recent past with an unsentimental nostalgia (Retro. The Culture of Revival 11) that begins with Modernism (see ibid. 25). However, nostalgia is not objective but a form of perception based on affect (Sielke 15). These affective memories carry emotional components that idealize the past rather than reflect on it objectively, which allows for irony, thus giving the term retro in Guffey's definition a highly fuzzy quality. Reynolds (xxx-xxxi) defines retro in four points, i.e. that retro is set in a time frame within living memory, is a reproduction of old styles, concerns popular culture, and does not idealize the past but looks at it with irony . For this article we will define retro as an ironic reevaluation of objects from the recent past, i.e. living memory, which may or may not invoke nostalgia. However, precise reproductions of the products lack the up-to-date standards of today. Let's take a car for example. The design may be retro and flattering by today's standards, but the outdated technology makes the car inefficient andunreliable. To get around this, brands use a strategy called retro branding or retro marketing. Instead of producing exact replicas of a product, brands can opt for retro products that combine old design with new functions (see Brown 365). Marrone et al. then refine the definition of retro branding as the revival or relaunch of a product or service brand from an earlier historical period, which is usually, but not always, updated to contemporary standards (20). Furthermore, retro branding can be motivated by several reasons, some of which are organizational in nature: a brand can capitalize on already existing resources and therefore reduce the risk of launching the product, the retro product can be a reaction to similar attempts by competitors , and could be an opportunity to leverage brand equity (see Brown 366-367). Brand equity plays with the idea that in uncertain times consumers purchase products that make them feel reassured, thus opting for brands that represent stability, familiarity and authenticity (see Hakala et al. 448). The authenticity of a brand, Leigh et al. discussed, can be achieved through product symbolism and/or self-efficacy (see 490). When people experience authenticity through product symbolism, they tend to use the products. People who experience authenticity through self-efficacy do so, instead, through the individual experiences they have had with the brand (see ibid.). The latter fits the definition of nostalgia. Therefore, it seems to be at least one of the reasons why the retro brand, which does not care about nostalgia, could evoke nostalgic affects in the consumer. Boccardi et al. argue that the symbiosis between a brand's legacy and mythopoeia is the key to authenticity (see 139). By reinterpreting the historical tradition of a brand through a mythopoetic narrative, a brand is able to transport the authenticity of the past even into the present (ibid. 139), this concept is related to retro branding. Retro branding through retro fashion designs The collection was not a remake of an entire campaign from the nineties, but featured some selected iconic designs from that decade. The company took designs from its archives and recreated them (see Gap launches limited-edition '90s archive reissue collection with Generation Gap film). It fits perfectly with all aspects of Reynolds for its definition of retro: the designs come from the recent past, they are a perfect replica of the original products, the design is about artefacts from popular culture and not all the designs were chosen to be reproduced but just a few selected elements on which we can look back and reflect on the past (see Retromania xxx-xxxi). Given that the designs have not been modified and therefore not updated to current standards, it could be argued that the re-release collection is not subject to retro branding. However, provided that the fashion industry is not as prone to innovation in the sense of cutting-edge technologies as for example the automotive industry, it adapts to the idea of ​​not always being completely up to date with contemporary standards (see Brown et al. 20). Then again, perhaps it's the selection of items that are up to current standards and tastes. The entire campaign isn't necessarily directly reminiscent of the 1990s, and that's because the selected designs don't feature prints or colors stereotypically associated with that decade. Instead, the campaign involved primarily white, black, and blue people (Gap, 2017). In this regard, the collection has been updated to current tastes. Furthermore, the collection seems to fit the brands' motivations for retro branding (see Brown et al. 366-367). Infirst, it must have cost much less to recreate archived designs than to invent entirely new designs, and given that the 1990s aesthetic is very popular in the fashion industry at the moment, the company must have made a profit. Secondly, Gap took the rescue route with this collection because the products have been successful in the past and the relaunch would probably work well again on the preface that nineties fashion is making a comeback. Third, while it's hard to say that Gap launched this campaign in response to a similar campaign run by another company, it's pretty obvious that they launched the project because the general competition started producing more '90s-inspired clothing. Ultimately, the campaign is a way to show the public that Gap is a stable and authentic company that has been around for many years. The company seeks to convey authenticity through old designs onto which customers can then project their own individual memories (see Leigh et al. 491). It's not just about the re-release, but also the "stories that accompany it" (Gap launches limited-edition '90s archive re-release collection with Generation Gap film). Symbolic references that reinforce the heritage and authenticity of the brand. The Generation Gap campaign video: 90s Icons Now (Gap, 2017) shows the faces of the children of models who had already modeled the same clothes in the nineties. Each of them wears their parents' dress. The one exception is Naomi Campbell, who modeled for Gap in 1992 and appears in the video wearing the same outfit in the new campaign that she wore before (see Gap launches limited-edition '90s archive reissue collection with the film Generation Gap). With this the video plays with old and new symbols through the example of generations. The older generation is retired and the young people associated with them are in the spotlight. It's a transition in the idea of ​​retro branding; new images to replace the old one by referring to it. It is through that symbolism that the brand reinterprets its history in the manner of mythopoetry and creates and transfers its authenticity from the past to the present. Another aspect that touches on the retro branding is the style of the video. Mostly shot in high resolution with modern equipment, there are some shots of rougher quality, presumably shot with an old camera or added later as a filter (Gap, 2017). The low-quality footage is a reference to the original advertisements from the 1990s. Furthermore, the video is shot in black and white for the first fifty seconds. Then it becomes polychrome. It's curious, though, why the video is monochrome in the first place. Nineties campaigns were already shot in polychrome, and polychrome television was not a new technology, making the monochrome sequence at the start of the 2017 video a reference to a different past. However, both the low to high resolution shots and the monochrome to polychrome coloring, show how retro elements are updated to the contemporary standard and therefore connect the old campaigns to the present by referencing them in their technology. The song the models sing a cappella in the video is called All 4 Love and was Billboard's number one hit in 1992 (see Gap Launches Limited Edition '90s Archive Reissue Collection with Generation Gap Film ). The music, the arrangement of the models on a cubic landscape and the camera moving through this arrangement of the models are very similar to a commercial from the 1990s with the song Mellow Yellow (see ibid.). The layout, camera movement and above all the resolution have undergone changes in the new one..