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"  Patrick Robinson is the creative director of the Gap and a man with denim on the brain \u2014 denim and iPods. &amp;quot;I was in a mall in California recently,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;and I noticed all these different kinds of people playing with iPods in the Apple store. There was a six-year-old next to a 13-year-old next to someone in his 20s, all because Apple was able to find this one core thing that everyone can relate to.&amp;quot; That kind of smart, simple design with mass appeal was what made the Gap the Gap, an all-American empire of 1,000-plus stores built on fluffy white T-shirts, infallible khakis, and perky salesclerks named Debbie. But when Robinson joined the company in 2007, he found it in a &amp;quot;downward spiral&amp;quot;: depressed sales, waning relevance, and fierce competition from brands as diverse as Abercrombie &amp;amp;amp; Fitch and H&amp;amp;amp;M. The Gap needed a reboot, and Robinson, an alum of Armani and Perry Ellis, had the muscle and vision to do it. &amp;quot;We needed to redefine all those American classics \u2014 jeans, T-shirts, khakis \u2014 for today,&amp;quot; Robinson says. &amp;quot;Not for 15 years ago. Not for ten years ago. For today.&amp;quot;  Which brings us to denim. No sooner did Robinson begin working for the Gap than he discovered a consensus among his target customers: &amp;quot;There was this mentality that jeans from the Gap were weekend jeans. Slouchy, loose, and just not that cool. We weren&amp;#039;t giving customers all the things they expected from premium jeans \u2014 the washes, the fabrics, the quality.&amp;quot; Over the next year and a half, Robinson and his design and manufacturing teams completely overhauled how the Gap&amp;#039;s jeans were made, retooling the fabrics, fits, and washes and retraining the factory workers who produce them. This month, all their efforts can be seen and felt in the company&amp;#039;s new 1969 Premium Jeans collection, and Robinson has high hopes. &amp;quot;We now have the best-fitting jeans in the world.&amp;quot; Come again? &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a bold statement, but we spent the time to do it.&amp;quot; The collection offers seven fits for men (from &amp;quot;skinny&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;easy&amp;quot;), and each fit comes in three to six washes (from dark to light), meaning a man has about 40 different options for jeans at any given time in any given Gap store. But as Robinson is quick to point out, &amp;quot;A guy should really only have one option. You should be able to go in there and find a fit you&amp;#039;ll really dig and that you can wear forever.&amp;quot; Smart, simple design: It never gets old.  Check out the new collection at gap.com.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/style/a6059/patrick-robinson-designer-0809/>