Old Navy started out as the outlet store for the Gap and Banana Republic. (In San Fran I think)
They are part of the Gap/Banana Republic group and you can use the charge card in all three stores.
You don't have to tell me that. I worked for the company six years of my life.
What I was referring to was this. When I started there in 2001, ON was a company known for DEALS. You can get 3 shirts for $15, 2 pairs of jeans for $25, etc. It was a fun atmosphere to work in. The focus was on great deals for the whole family. Then around 2005, that started to change. The focus was not on the deals as much. Now we started to introduce speciality clothes. We brought in a Maternity line. Then came Women's Plus. We added more styles of sweaters, shirts, special edition boot cut jeans, the works. We, as a company, wanted to compete with the likes of American Eagle, Ambricombie and Fitch, stores that sold 'vintage' clothes or speciality clothes at ridiculous prices. We went from family look to a more sophisticated, 'hip' look. They wanted people to react saying, 'Check it out. Old Navy has hip clothes like A & F. I've always been a loyal ON shopper for my whole family. Now me and my kids can look hip! I'll have to check these clothes out!' It turned out to be a downfall in the long run. I left the company in 2006, and since then the company has been in bad shape. I'm not saying that was the direct reason for it, but I think they lost focus when they started to cater toward the trendy in-crowd instead of the 'Fits for the whole family,' which was their bread and butter for years...
That's my two cents from someone formerly in the biz...
