gap likes tall people in their stores

Yesterday, as I walked back to my office from lunch and passed by The Gap as I normally do… I furrowed my brow as I saw the latest promotion sign.

$25 SWEATERS

$10 SHIRTS

I didn’t walk in the store. I didn’t want to tempt myself with clothes that are too short… or will be after a few wears. Heck, I was wearing one of those “oh this is sort of long… it’ll fit… oh wait, now it doesn’t fit really long after a year’s wear” sweaters as I walked by the sign. I kept walking, grabbed my phone, and tweeted my frustration.

But something magical happened (aren’t these the best Twitter stories?!?) … @GAP replied!

And this morning, I got that email from Lindsay… or rather Kathy… but who cares because they had @gap.com in their email address and it was full of good news!

We have some great news to share!  Our online store, gap.com, will honor store promotions on online exclusive sizes.  This applies to regular-priced promotion products only, not markdown product promotions.  For example, we will honor a store’s promotion price of 20% off Regularly Priced Dresses for a Women’s Tall size, but would not honor 20% off Markdown/Clearance dresses in Women’s Tall.

You may call from home or from a store, or a store may call on your behalf to place your order.  You must also be sure to call during the valid dates/times of the promotion.

This may seem like silly news to you… because gap.com always has sales online and coupons to use so who cares about in-store promotions. But to me… this is somewhat liberating.

I walk into the mall and realize that my best decision is to window-shop for things I like in stores that carry tall sizes, and then cross my fingers that it’s available in TALL online. I’m old enough to know that I shouldn’t buy things that just barely fit…. and old enough not to barely fit in the clothes I could pull off from normal stores in my 20’s. So I stay out of malls and away from clothes shopping in person and keep to my online habits instead. And it’s lonely. I liked shopping for clothes with friends… and just going out and having a chance to find something fun for myself. For a while now I’m been the shoe/house/makeup mall consumer instead.

But now that I can participate in these store sales, I can walk into Banana Republic or GAP or Old Navy and look and pretend like I’m everyone else there.

This sounds so absolutely ridiculous being typed out… but there it is. A little bit of happy news from a brand that likes petite and tall people. :)