“San Francisco is physically, I believe, one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” says Zac Posen, the beaming creative director of Gap Inc. A local attraction that has particularly resonated with him, though, is a little more abstract: Ellsworth Kelly’s iconic Blue Green Black Red painting, which once belonged to Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher and now hangs inside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “[The first time] I sat with these Ellsworth Kelly [panels], I was like, ‘This is the Gap color story of my childhood,’” says Posen. “These art pieces existed in the headquarters of Gap for many years. That’s my ‘boo-hoo’ because I’m like, ‘I want to live with this incredible art.’”
Posen, who took on the role at Gap Inc. (which also includes brands Old Navy and Banana Republic) in 2024, may not be rubbing shoulders with the artwork as often as he’d like over at Gap HQ along the Embarcadero waterfront, but his office does have a very nice view of the bay, which he describes as “the world’s greatest screen saver.” The ebullient designer is a superfan of the city. Although he has been in San Francisco only since he relocated two years ago from his born and bred life in New York City, Posen is like an off duty tour guide for the Golden Gate City, waxing lyrical about its multiple subclimates, the birthplace of the fortune cookie at the still-functioning Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory (founded in 1962), and the Ferry Building farmers market, where, he says, you can learn the name of the cow from which the milk is sourced. He loves submerging himself in the “Palermo colors” of the city’s historically Italian North Beach neighborhood (even if it’s only for an hour during his off time) and walking among the old-growth trees of Muir Woods National Monument, across the bay in Marin County.
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