Rando Report: I Can’t Find That Gap Chunky Turtleneck From 2000, Mechanical vs. Quartz Watches, and More
Carine Roitfeld…a second-coming? Plus, Neverworns LIVE! Shopping on Substack airing Sunday, Jan 5th.
The Rando Report is a weekly roundup of observations…some longer than others.
That History-Making Gap Chunky Turtleneck…Well, It’s Gone
This past week, I saw murmurings of the Gap Chunky Turtleneck from 2000 cropping up on TikTok and Substack. (I also saw a dash of the Crazy Stripe from 1999 floating around). I wrote about the Chunky Turtleneck for Vogue in 2022, so why the fodder now? Well, duh: It’s the 25th Anniversary of this saccharine cotton blend. To be swaddled in this candy cane of a piece! It’s delicious dopamine! It’s the best of nostalgia and the pinnacle of mall culture. I am thrilled the Gap Chunky Turtleneck has entered our fashion ecosystem again. It never gets old. Last week, when I reposted the piece, I still received dozens of messages from people who had the turtleneck, the scarf, and the bag! The Gap-fecta. These messages and photos came from all over the world, from young people who just purchased the Chunky Turtleneck from Poshmark, eBay, or Depop or people who snagged it from the millennium jump at a Gap brick-and-mortar. Fab!
Like everyone else, I love this sweater because it is visually pleasing, fun, and happy. But it also signifies a specific era of shopping…the great reign of malls. While the Gap Chunky Turtleneck itself isn’t cashmere or even fully supple cotton, overall, mall items were stellar quality back then. This is why we see the uptick of Abercrombie & Fitch, J. Crew, and Ann Taylor in the resale market. You can thank the boom of fast fashion….H&M, and Forever 21…for the downfall of great quality mall pieces. (Although I love some of H&M’s older designs.)
Also, Gap completely dominated the advertising world, which wasn’t social-based. Everywhere you turned, there was a Gap image. A Gap commercial. A Gap spread. A Gap billboard.
Here’s a quote from Elliot Staples, who designed the sweater and nailed the era’s feeling.
“The chunky version of that sleek silhouette, and those wild stripes, was the brainchild of former Gap designer Elliot Staples. He initially thought up a thinner version in 1996 named the Crazy Stripe Sweater, which was crafted from neutral and rainbow lambswool and came in a crewneck form. ‘Of course, the rainbow one was the clear winner, and it became an instant Gap icon,’ writes Staples. A best seller, Gap revisited the design in 2000, transforming it into the Chunky Turtleneck. It was shown on four models in three shades. Staples talks about the feeling at Gap at the time, which reflects the optimistic boom beyond the brand and of retail as a whole. ‘The mood at The Gap then was incredible. Womens was performing and growing. It was all about killer items in amazing colors. Everyone knew it would be an instant success. I remember presenting the sweater on a group of 10 models all wearing the same turtleneck sweater but in different colors,’ Staples writes. ‘Back then, the simplest of ideas created such excitement.’”
Gap also connected emotion to their campaigns. The dancers rabidly smiling as they swing-dance in unison, wearing the mass brand’s chinos. The beautiful, fresh-faced, snow-kissed young people frolicking in the snow. This is the vision of absolute ecstasy. The aspirational emotion moment in advertising is also a crucial part of world-building and is something you see in editorials in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s: the product is a gateway to this fantastical world, and that emotion.
In my Instagram caption, I mentioned that the Gap Chunky Turtleneck reminded me of the Clinique Happy campaigns that started in 1997. The rollout was revolutionary at the time because the campaign and the product’s name were so directly tied to emotion. This branding move was initially considered stupid, but the joke’s on the critics. The perfume was a major hit. On Substack,
mentioned Clinique Happy on my note about the resurgence of the Gap Chunky Turtleneck! The feel is mutual; universal! Emotion can lead to a best-seller. See the Rando Report last week about the hot girl campaign for the bag Auto.
So what now? Well, there are no Gap Chunky Turtlenecks. The last one I saw was an XL on Poshmark that sold a few days ago. There has been one marinating on the Mercari for months (maybe a year?), but it hasn’t moved. I suspect it isn’t available. Also, shout out to the person aka sales4tatteredtails who used my Instagram on their Depop…love it.
But fun fact… perhaps we’ll see a reissue? Someone who worked at Gap contacted me and said the company reissued the Chunky Turtleneck for 2023, but I never saw it… hit the market? Only the Gap Crazy Stripe…
Anyway, if you have any memories connected to this piece, please let me know! I’d love to include them and a picture in a future post.
Here are just a few:
Also, please follow Michael Bise of @gapplaylists…he initially posted the campaign, which sent me down the rabbit hole.
I Learned the Difference Between Mechanical and Quartz Watches
I filmed a NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping on Substack, where I sold watches with
of the informational watch hub of Dimepiece. Some horological treats were inexpensive, like a charming Winnie the Pooh Timex for $40, while some were…pricey, like a Cartier Tank with the most delicious blood-red croc strap. Anyway! As someone who doesn’t know about watches…I learned a lot, most interestingly, about the mechanical vs quartz functions. Here is an explainer in the video below…and there is the full episode of NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping with Dimepiece at the bottom!NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping: Stay Tuned
STAY TUNED for the next NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping on Substack January 5th at 7pm. You’ll be able to…buy what you see. Next up: Lots of vintage Tom Ford-era Gucci!
Shop the Film: Family Man (2000)
I watched Family Man (2000), a cornball Christmas movie that stars a very hot Nicolas Cage, Téa Leone, and a great cameo of leggy supermodel Amber Valletta. There’s a red-hot fashion moment: Valletta exits an elevator in a Tom Ford-era Gucci fall 1999 white coat with a whip-thin leather belt. I initially thought it was Valletta who wore it on the runway, but stupid me, it was Carolyn Murphy on the runway.
Like all clothes, I love seeing them in action and thoughtfully put to use. It was as if this Tom Ford-era Gucci was made for shedding in an elevator and constructing a penthouse peep show. You untie the belt, and viola, expose yourself and those triple-digit underpinnings. Keep in mind this is a white coat, so you don’t just wear it out and grind your ass into a subway seat. This coat demands a town car, or in now-speak, a black Uber XL with fragrant leather seats. The coat reminds me of a super high heel that comes with an unsaid, embedded expense at purchase… you’ll have to pay for transportation upkeep and maintenance for an item like this. But if I can look like Valletta in this sort of coat, all those superfluous costs are worth it.
Anyway, sometimes I see the white version crop up. If you buy it, snag some stellar La Perla that you can only hand wash in the sink, and squirrel away some Uber moolah.
Carine Roitfeld Joins…TikTok
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
The TikTok ban is looming, but former French Vogue editor-in-chief Carine Roitfled has joined the platform. In her first post, she plays off of the Devil Wears Prada “Are you wearing the Chanel” scene. I love how fabulously bad and grainy the video is.
But a lot of these great dames have horrible social media moments, which plays into their charm: Martha Stewart can’t take a photo for shit, and neither can Suzy Menkes. That’s fine. We love them anyway.
Anyway…I hope that Carine will delve into her styling past, which I’m sure she will.
If You Haven’t Read…Do It Now!
I interviewed the OG designers of Barneys New York Collection, aka the in-house collection that is having a resale resurgence…here it is! It’s a Deep Dive.
NEVERWORNS: Marketplace
As mentioned, I’m introducing a new listing component to the once-a-week Rando Report for paying subscribers who want to list one GREAT item they want to part with.
Here is a Fashion Café sweatshirt. It fits a medium that is going for $165. It’s a historical piece; an original that is almost 30 years old!
For the uninitiated, this merch is from the Fashion Café, which was opened by supermodels Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and Elle Macpherson in 1995. The merch is fabulous and like…elevated Hard Rock Café…Here is an excellent piece by my former colleague Elise Taylor. Also, another former colleague who was old enough to eat there said the food was absolutely horrible. Ok, at least the merch was great.
You are forever brilliant. Bring back the Gap chunky turtleneck asap — you have the power. xx
I do see what I think is the 2023 reissue on resale sites sometimes but it’s not comparable (completely different material, sort of like a polyester chenille throw blanket situation, sad looking). I think a more true to the original rerun would do well - wish they would re-release it properly!