英国卫报：Gap是如何迷失自己的？(3)（在线收听）

　　Still, for all the TikTokers buying logo hoodies and Ye fans snapping up Yeezy Gap, the retail experts I spoke with were not optimistic about the brand’s future.

　　尽管如此，尽管抖音用户购买带logo的卫衣，Ye粉丝抢购Yeezy Gap，但与我交谈的零售专家对该品牌的未来并不持乐观态度。

　　One problem that kept coming up was Gap’s lack of any clear identity, a crucial factor in the long-term success of any clothing brand.

　　一个不断出现的问题是，Gap缺乏任何明确的个性，这是任何服装品牌长期成功的关键因素。

　　“I think for years, the challenge has been that there has been no clear point of difference for Gap,” said Allen Adamson, a co-founder of the retail consultancy Metaforce.

　　零售咨询公司Metaforce的联合创始人艾伦·亚当森说，“我认为，多年来，Gap面临的挑战是没有明显的特别之处。”

　　Gap’s squishy new tagline, Modern American Optimism, doesn’t offer much help.

　　Gap含糊其辞的新口号--现代美国乐观主义--并没有提供太多帮助。

　　(Nor do vague words of encouragement feel especially meaningful at this less-than-sunny moment in US history.)

　　(在美国历史上这个不那么阳光灿烂的时刻，含糊的鼓励之词也没有什么特别的意义。)

　　These identity questions remained hazy even after I received an emailed statement from Gap laying out its intention to both “provide something for everyone at every stage of their life”, and to focus on capturing millennial and gen Z customers.

　　即使在我收到Gap的一份电子邮件声明后，这些身份问题仍然模糊不清，该声明表示，Gap的意图是：为每个人生活的每个阶段提供一些东西”，并专注于吸引千禧一代和Z一代的消费者。

　　When it first hit the scene in the late 60s, Gap was speaking to a generation of young people.

　　当Gap在60年代末首次出现时，Gap在与一代年轻人对话。

　　Today, the brand faces the challenge of clarifying a message that has grown blurry.

　　如今，该品牌面临的挑战是要澄清一个已经变得模糊的信息。

　　As people who spend too much time on social media know, gen Z likes to make fun of boomers, but it has that generation to thank for Gap’s ascendance.

　　泡在社交媒体上的人都知道，Z世代喜欢取笑婴儿潮一代，但Gap的崛起要归功于这一代人。

　　The first Gap store opened in 1969 in San Francisco, the hotbed of the hippy movement, and it sold records, and blue jeans made by Levi Strauss, a company based in the same city that had been producing denim since 1853.

　　Gap的第一家店于1969年在嬉皮士运动的温床旧金山开业，出售录音带和Levi Strauss生产的蓝色牛仔裤。Levi Strauss是一家总部设在同一座城市的公司，自1853年以来一直生产牛仔裤。

　　The story goes that Gap’s founder, a then-41-year-old real-estate businessman named Donald Fisher, accidentally ordered a pair of Levi’s in the wrong size and couldn’t find a local store where he could exchange them for the right one, so he decided to open a store that carried the brand in a suitably large range of sizes.

　　Gap的创始人当时41岁，是一位名叫唐纳德·费舍尔的房地产商人，他不小心订购了一条尺码错误的李维斯裤子，但在当地找不到一家商店可以把它们换成合适的，所以他决定开一家店，销售该品牌各个尺码的商品。

　　While the idea for the store catered to Fisher’s own needs, it spoke directly to the generation that followed his: baby boomers, who were in their early 20s when “The Gap” -- so named for the generation gap between that cohort and their parents -- opened its doors.

　　虽然开店的想法迎合了费舍尔自己的需求，但它直接面向了他之后的那一代人：婴儿潮一代，他们在20岁出头的时候Gap开始营业（因这一群体和他们父母之间的代沟而得名）。

　　Baby boomers were eager adopters of blue jeans as everyday clothes, and Gap had blue jeans to spare.

　　婴儿潮一代热衷于将蓝色牛仔裤作为日常服装，而Gap有许多蓝色牛仔裤。