Video review: The Gap Document

We’re always flooded with magazines here in the Stack office, but running the Stack Awards this year meant we had even more of them than normal flowing through the place. That’s almost exclusively a good thing, except that in the deluge I missed The Gap Document, and its even more recent sibling, The Cooper Collection Document.

Both were released last month by Document Studios, and each one digs deep into a fashion brand to understand its history, influences and significance. The Gap Document concerns itself with high street brand Gap, while The Cooper Collection revolves around Lee Cooper, and I found myself totally fascinated by their approach to storytelling.

In one sense they’re independent, because they’re made by Document Studios and contain the thoughts and opinions of a range of industry experts. But on the other hand these magazines are owned by the brands, which pay for the cost of publishing them. It’s an unusual compromise but one I really enjoyed, and as you can probably tell from the video below, I definitely came away feeling warmer to Gap after reading. This is a project that could very easily feel like an exercise in brand sycophancy, but Document Studios founder David Hellqvist has done a fantastic job of telling an interesting and stimulating story with his innovative hybrid approach.

Two-Minute Magazines #145: The Gap Document from Steven Watson on Vimeo.

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