With the latest Gap Home expansion featuring furniture, rugs, and a refresh of our favorite décor and tabletops, we sat down with Anouar Alami, Head of Licensing, to get the latest styling tips and must-have gifts for the holidays.
Tell us about your journey to your current role and what you do as the Head of Licensing on the Franchise, Strategic Alliances, and Licensing (“FSAL”) team?
I have been part of the Gap family for many years now. I started as a Sales Associate in stores and have held roles in Merchandising, Buying, Product Management, Trend & Concept, and Partnerships across several Gap Inc. Brands before joining the FSAL team last year.
As the Head of Licensing, I oversee all licensing functions, from strategy to operations to creative direction. The Gap Home collection is exciting because home is a new market for us that we’ve never substantially played in, and we’ve partnered exclusively with Walmart to reach.
What is the design inspiration for the Gap Home Furniture collection?
Our Gap brand positioning, Modern American Optimism, is the inspiration for every collection and every category we create. Using that inspiration, we work with our licensing partners to design the products by selecting optimistic colors and fabrics that feel authentically Gap and are also approachable and easy for customers to integrate into their homes. In addition, our licensing partners strive to produce quality, well-made products that incorporate more sustainable materials, such as organic cotton and recycled materials.
With respect to furniture, specifically, our design inspiration is a hybrid style of contemporary meets modern, with touches of mid-century and Scandinavian influences. We want everything to have a youthful, yet versatile, energy to it. Our goal is to help design pieces that are timeless and that can be used for years to come.
With your creative expertise, we’d love to hear your personal holiday home styling tips.
I am a big fan of color, pattern and prints! One of our top sellers is the mix and match Ceramic Dinnerware Set. For the holidays, I love enhancing the energy of a room through pattern by incorporating throws or other home accessories into the space in order to give that room a seasonal shift. In the Gap Home collection, we have expanded our dinnerware set with new seasonal colors including red, grey and sage, which are perfect for setting your table and entertaining friends and family around the holidays.
It’s also easy to incorporate pattern through bedding and rugs. We’ve added some fun plaids in bedding, so that’s an easy way to refresh your space for guests who visit throughout the holiday season. With rugs, our color palette is classic with great designs, and many are made of sustainable materials. A great tip I love is to try layering different rug designs to create a unique room aesthetic to fit your space! These are just a few easy ways to transition your home for the holidays.
What would you put in a Gap Home Gift Guide?
Our Gap Home collection includes so many amazing items that are available at approachable price points, but here are some of my favorite gift ideas:
- Dinnerware
- Rugs
- Throw Blankets & Pillows
- Bakeware
- Bedding
The entire new collection is arriving at Walmart.com between now and December 15 with items dropping every day, so check back regularly to do your holiday shopping!
What are you most excited about for Gap Home? What’s next?
I can’t wait to expand into more fun categories. I’m especially excited about our expansion into Walmart stores, as having a brick-and-mortar presence in Walmart allows our Gap Home collection to reach customers who are shopping in store. We have our next exciting launch in early 2022 with a lot more to come. We are just getting started!
Click HERE to learn more about the licensing process and our partnership with Walmart and start your holiday shopping at www.walmart.com/gaphome!
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