He used to be the star of simple and casual North American fashion.Its simple plain t-shirts and jeans captivated consumers, who adopted the brand as the symbol of the 90s. Gap made the Fishers one of the richest families in the United States, however today their presence has been reduced by the fall of shopping malls.Donald Fisher had no experience in the clothing business when, at 39, he opened his own store with his wife, Doris.He had studied Management at the University of California and then started working in his father's cabinet factory.He later turned to real estate through the purchase and renovation of old hotels.And in one of them he found the idea that would make him a millionaire.He rented space in Sacramento from a Levi's jeans reseller to set up his showroom.One day he visited the store to buy a pair of pants, but he couldn't find any that fit his crotch well.Not just there, but all over San Francisco.No business had the size of him.So he decided to create his store.In 1969 he opened The Gap, a store selling Levi's jeans and music cassettes geared toward young adults.His strategy was to sell simple, accessible clothes and have all the sizes well organized and in good stock.The name of the company was inspired by the concept of "generational gap" (generational gap, in English).The following year they opened a second store in San Jose.Don and Doris Fisher opened The Gap in 1969 in San Francisco.They sold Levi's jeans and music cassettesBy 1972 they launched their second vertical, Pants%ff!, a pants-only discount store.The firm benefited from the boom in casual wear and denim, and by 1973 it had 25 stores.That same year he began selling products under his own brand, particularly t-shirts and jeans.However, its great growth would occur during the following decade.The '80s were the boom times for Gap.In 1984 they launched their collection of t-shirts in 21 colors with a pocket on the front.One of them was used by Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly in Back to the Future.The holding company, which had been listed on the stock market since 1976, became professional and hired Millar Drexler as its number one.The executive faced a raid of acquisitions and developments to grow.For instance, he bought Banana Republic in 1984 and opened the GapKids, GapBody and BabyGap verticals.In 1987 it opened its first international store, in London, and the following year it changed its lowercase logo to the current one with a blue background.Donald and Doris Fisher, the creators of Gap.Today his children carry on his legacy.Starting in the 1990s, the company decided to stop selling Levi's products to concentrate on its brand.With Drexler as CEO, Old Navy was also launched, as a low-cost alternative, in 1994. But after 29 consecutive months of falling sales due to accelerated expansion, the executive left his position.However, this did not stop the purchases and launches.In 2008 he stayed with Athleta, five years later he announced the purchase of Intermix, dedicated to the luxury segment;in 2018 he created the menswear brand Hill City and in 2019 he acquired the children's clothing label Janie & Jack.Other experiments did not go as expected.In 2015 they closed their Piperlime online channel after nine years of activity and in 2007 they deactivated their Forth & Town store concept, focused on women over 35 years of age.The company began to suffer from the drop in sales of the shopping centers, its core, and the shift towards e-commerce and the direct sales segment.The fortune of the Fisher family, today made up of Robert, William and John, the children of Donald and Doris, was devalued by $1 billion in 2019. Gap Inc had already announced in 2011 that it would close about 189 stores by 2023. At its peak it had more than 3,000 locations operating, but now the numbers are smaller.The holding company had a turnover of US$16.67 billion in 2021, of which 54% belonged to the Old Navy brand, while Gap took 24%.Last year it reported 966 stores, although it plans to close about 350 by 2023.