Gap

Located across from the Mayflower hotel, this is a spacious and well stocked store. The staff is friendly without being overbearing. They had a great selection of clothes and accessories.

Great service, always great sales. There’s cashiers on the third floor if you feel up for a little exercise!

A decent Gap location walkable from other shopping and restaurants in the Farragut area. Easily accessible by metro (Red line to Farragut North or Orange/​Blue to Farragut West) or any of several bus lines.
The store is generally well-​organized and decently stocked, and my experiences interacting with employees have always been positive.
Keep an eye out for sales — especially when already marked down items are an additional 50% off. That’s the time to stock up! So much of the Gap is classic apparel that isn’t going out of style, so with a discerning eye, it’s easy to pick up items at the end of a season for up to 75% off the original price. You’ll be all set for next season! A favorite end of season buy is tights/​stockings for under $ 3.00 — this happens every year so don’t miss it!

So outside of the gap today, there were dozens of people chanting and protesting. After that building collapse that killed 1100 people at a clothing factory in Bangladesh in April, and the factory fires before that, a bunch of brands signed on to some better safety rules to keep it from happening again. The protesters had a list of the companies that signed on. But Gap won’t sign – what’s up with that? You’d think that with how overpriced they are, they could afford to keep people from dying while making their clothes. I like how Gap stuff looks on me, but I don’t want to shop there until they address this.

Lots of stuff on sale, but I think Gap prices are still obscene for the quality.
Staff wasn’t particularly friendly but then again I am comparing it with the staff at Ann Taylor who were all phenomenal.
Gap felt very cluttered and small but I have to give props to those working on the Friday afternoon I visited. They were working hard to fold clothes and talked about how to place the items.

The clothing looks good and it’s not too expensive. Everyone at the store was helpful but not overbearing. I’ll be back.

***3.5 stars***
The Gap has lost me over the past few years. A victim of their own success, they got greedy. Banana Republic and Old Navy have left the Gap as the middle child, with all that middle child syndrome entails. Trying to be all things to all people, it falls short sometimes. Back in the day (okay, mid-​late 90s, not really «the day»), I always knew that I could get really good, fashionable clothes for cheap. Not so much anymore.
So today was my first purchase from the Gap in quite a while. I was immediately greeted by a sales clerk (manager?) and while I was only there for socks, I caught myself staring at their new unisex fragrance line.
I do not need any more cologne/​EDT. I have over 20 bottles of the stuff. But I can’t say no. The clerk was kind enough to let me smell what he was wearing, describe the fragrances, and offer his opinions (certain frags take longer to «mellow» on your skin, so it was helpful for him to say what smelled good straight out of the bottle vs. what needed to dry down for a while). And I also got my socks :) I was honestly impressed because customer service, traditionally, hasn’t been one of the Gap’s stronger points. While I’ve never been treated poorly, I find myself hearing «like,» «totally,» and «OMG» more than I really need to while trying on shirts. There was no hard sell, and no hackneyed promises of lusty, virile women ripping my clothes of the EXACT SECOND I put the juice on.
The verdict: I’m almost tempted to run down and get another bottle of something different. Now, I’ll probably steer clear of Gap clothes until they start bringing back stuff I want to wear (hint: start designing size 36 pants that don’t look two sizes too big), but for accessories and extras, they do all right.

When I’m in need for something dire, you always come through. You lose a star when my options for that something dire are limited to only two. Upon reflection, you lose another star because you really didn’t have anything in the way of warmer, winter wear. The store clerk was just putting out gloves when I was walking through the store.
What the crap? It’s been cold out now for about two weeks and it’s November. Get with the times.

The middle child. Not as nice as Banana, better than Old Navy, demanding our attention with an ever-​increasingly-​annoying ad campaign that almost makes me long for an Old Navy commercial. I said almost. The epitome of mediocrity.
The one on Connecticut Avenue is especially lackluster. The selection is not as good as at some other Gap locations (I enjoy the one in Annapolis). Although, to be fair, there are only so many ways to do jeans, khakis, and brightly colored T-​shirts and sweaters. So I guess in terms of selection, if you have one you have them all (in every color, of course!).
I will say that this one is kept quite neat and clean. And the security guards I’ve met there (because they’re nice and say hi, not from being arrested, lol!) are quite nice.