Mind The Gap

The Gap is opening in Hong Kong, and to attract customers they've plastered adverts all over some of the structural support pillars in the Central MTR station. I imagine that as soon as it opens, the shop will be packed with glamourous, fashion focussed denizens of Hong Kong, desperate for ... a pair of relaxed fit blue jeans?

No, hang on, that can't be right. People in Hong Kong might have some strange ideas about clothes: black vinyl leggings in midsummer, Giardino t-shirts with enormous smiley face logos, hiking trousers on the MRT and plush velvet jeans and high heels on the hiking trails. But they're not the sort of people to get excited by the bland, kind of average, sort-of-something stuff that the Gap churns out.

Maybe a series of tv adverts where young things prance about in standardised denim and fleeces (again, perfect for Hong Kong's climate) will drive up people's enthusiasm, but I'm still rather sceptical about that.

Really, what's the aspirational value that Gap can provide? The chance to wear some clothes that were mass-produced in China? It's not as if Hong Kongers went crazy for anything else like that.

Oh. Apart from that enormous Apple Store in IFC. Maybe I'll avoid making any more economic predictions.