Zac Posen and his design team are finishing a custom dress for an actress.
He has done this countless times before under his namesake line, which was shuttered in 2019.
She has to be able to wear a bra.
LOVE ALL THE WAYPosen and fiancé Harrison Ball at home in New York (though these days they’re spending plenty of time in San Francisco). Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz.Vogue, Winter 2025.
Outside, ships and helicopters glide across the turquoise expanse of San Francisco Bay.
Its like the craziest screensaver ever, Posen says.
The weather changes so dramatically.
THE SCARLET AND THE BLACKPosen cut his teeth on red-carpet dressing—and he sees a place for it at Gap, too. from left: Julia Schlaepfer (starring in theYellowstoneprequel1923), and Laysla De Oliveira (ofLioness). All wearing GapStudio (here and throughout); gap.com. Larroudé shoes.
Ill be in meetings, and its like Wagner outside.
Im basically on the plane every other week, he says.
Its like teleporting: I close my eyes and hope for Wi-Fi.
MIND THE GAPThe launch of GapStudio reconnects Posen (far left) with designing for every aspect of life—from laid-back denim on actor Callina Liang (soon to be seen in the filmPresence), to high-glam red onThe Morning Show’s Nicole Beharie. Larroudé shoes.
Posens job, which Gap Inc. CEO Richard Dickson invented for him, is not very clearly defined.
Because it was Zac, I knew it wasnt going to be just a shirtdress, Hathaway tells me.
But at 44, he still has the exuberant energy of a kid on Sunday morning.
His curls are in a perpetual, endearing bedhead.
When Posen likes something, such as a new print or a reusable bag, he declares it yummy.
When he doesnt, such as a certain shade of orange, he calls it yucky.
A color called sulfur gives him the heebie-jeebies, as does wasteful packaging.
Posen also loves to play.
But for now, he still has a bunch of meetings to get through.
The T-shirt dress, meanwhile, is for Demi Moore, who appeared in an iconic 1990 Gap ad.
When Moore wears the dress that will bethats rightanother full-circle moment.
She likes to hide a heel, Posen tells his team.
Give her a little train, and well chop it off if she wants.
from left: Julia Schlaepfer (starring in theYellowstoneprequel1923), and Laysla De Oliveira (ofLioness).
All wearing GapStudio (here and throughout); gap.com.
Posen sees GapStudio almost like a couture house.
Yes, it involves custom pieces, but the bigger idea is to drive people into the stores.
But well actually produce it.
And at an accessible price point.
Eight days after Hathaway wore her shirtdress, Gap made a version of it available for $158.
It sold out within hours.
It was a real viral moment, Posen says.
I can get you the stats.
According to Dickson, such moments helped remind people that Gap still exists.
He needed to capture attention quickly and improve morale.
Posens creations for Hathaway, Erivo, and DaVine Joy Randolph at last years Met Gala did just that.
Those sparkles turned heads, Dickson tells me, snapping his fingers.
The lights were now on at the Gap.
Posen, for his part, saw himself in Gaps plight.
I love sleeping beauties, he says, adding, America loves heralding and shooting down.
And Ive definitely been a dove, a pigeon, a unicorn, and a dragon.
So for me its like,What an opportunity!
Back in 2019, after Posens company closed, he found himself in a professional abyss.
He wondered how he would support himself.
Posen went to Los Angeles, flirting with the idea of working in Hollywood.
He tried Paris, where he interviewed for jobs at French houses.
The Swans.He and Dickson connected in the fall of 2023.
Dickson was previously the president of Mattel, where he shepherded theBarbieblockbuster.
The companys San Francisco headquarters has thousands of employees.
Posen bounds about its 15 floors, darting between meetings.
To bypass the elevator bays, hell often just take the stairs.
I would be terrified to see my steps, he says.
The companys language of corporate acronyms are a challenge for Posens dyslexia.
In the afternoon we settle into Posens office, where he unlaces his boots.
The shoes are coming off, he says.
You dont care, right?
It makes sense that Posen, who is highly tactile, would need to design barefoot.
Posen slips a pincushion onto his forearm.
Their questions were what one might expect: What happened to his company?
After making his name in eveningwear, why did he want to make jeans and T-shirts?
Did he understand the complexities of a $15 billion business?
Posen had once led the way for a generation of designers that emerged in post-9/11 New York.
The houses intellectual property (including Posens name) has since been sold off to a licensing firm.
And yet during that time, Posen had amassed an enormous amount of experience.
But it definitely prepared me.
Zac is a very creative person, De Sole told me, but hes also a thoughtful person.
He understands marketing and business.
What appealed to Posen about the job was the opportunity to be integrated into so many peoples lives.
And he would now have the solid, experienced partners hed always looked for.
Earlier I watched him show summer sketches to Dickson and Mark Breitbard, Gaps CEO.
Sample, play, Breitbard said.
I wondered if Posen feels a new kind of freedom with the resources of a major company behind him.
Its a public company, which is a whole different level of intensity.
That means youre in touch with the market, the weather, the world beyond.
He means literally: the weather.
Dickson told me that Gap has different challenges than a brand like Barbie.
Barbie had haters, he said, so you had people who actually didnt like you.
Here, you have people who like you, but just werent engaged anymore.
Dicksons hope is to reclaim some of that space.
How do you do it?
Posen asks, before answering his own question.
You go back to what you do best.
Later, Posen tells me, Its not luxury, but its, you know, yummy.
And thats a really great way of creating, right?
That just became something very hands-on and artisanal.
Our customers deserve that experience.
It shouldnt be price prohibitiveI just dont believe in that.
He gets first dibs, she said.)
How do you do it?
Posen asks, about the task ahead of him, before answering his own question.
Ball found their home on Zillow.
The couples dogs, Tsuki and Bizet, circle underfoot as Posen slumps in Balls arms in the kitchen.
What a week, he says.
While Posen walks the dogs, Ball tells me how they met.
They first saw each other in 2019 at Lincoln Center when Posen designed costumes for the ballet.
(He was masking a lot of pain, Ball says.)
A few months later, Ball was performing as Prince Siegfried inSwan Lake.
He asked a mutual friend to invite Posen to rehearsals.
Ball imagined wooing Posen, but instead Posen came onstage afterward and gave Ball a correction.
Granted, I later saw a tape of that performance, and he was right, Ball says.
Posen holed up in Bridgehampton with the Schnabels, the family of his close childhood friend Lola.
Ball and Posen began exchanging messages.
But then the cell tower on the island was struck by lightning, wiping out the internet.
Months went by without the two communicating.
Ball had planned to visit for three days and ended up staying a month.
During a day trip to Woodstock, Ball asked Posen what he was looking for.
Posen said he wanted to have a family.
Ball was 27 then.
He had been dancing since the age of four and was experiencing freedom for the first time.
He encouraged Posen to do the sameto go and live and date people.
They didnt see each other again until early the next year.
When Ball returned to New York, Posen sent a car to pick him up from the airport.
He asked the driver to turn around, and flew to North Carolina instead to see family.
I could feel that something was about to change in my life, Ball tells me.
A week later Posen cleared out two closets and Ball moved in.
A year later, in 2022, they got engaged.
That same year, Ball was promoted to principal dancer.
Posen came to every show.
Ball was dancing the role of the Poet inLa Sonnambulawhen he decided he wanted to retire.
A sesamoid bone in his foot was crushed, and arthritis was tormenting his body.
He and Posen began to spend more time with Posens family in rural Pennsylvania.
And then his mother got diagnosed with cancer, stage IV, Ball says.
When Posen returns from his walk, he seems nervous.
Everyone gets really scared when I talk, because Ireallytalk, Ball says.
As we walk to dinner, Posen picks up the story.
I was like Maria von Trapp, Posen says.
But then the new year came, his mother became ill, and he kept thinking about Ball.
It was time to go back to New York, he says.
Posen reminds me that he has a grounded side: He likes to garden, cook.
Listen, his parents are normal, Ball adds.
He grew up going to Q-Mart in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
He didnt exactly plan on becoming the ball gown guy.
Gowns were ultimately a strategic decision.
Fast fashion was coming in to take on sportswear and accessible luxury.
There was an opportunity to really own it, he says.
The previous night, Ball had christened a new TV room by watching Posen onProject Runwayfor the first time.
But you were just trying to help your company survive.
You were a kid, says Ball, who moved to New York as a teen.
Dickson told me that this was part of Posens appeal: That he had known and understood failure.
Ball likened it to a pilot in the Bahamas who once crashed a puddle jumper into the ocean.
Nobody would fly with him.
Posens mother, Susan, played a big role in Posens decision to take the job.
Last Christmas Eve, Posen was with her in the hospital, negotiating with Dickson by phone.
She was asking Posen the terms of his contract just before her vitals crashed and she briefly lost consciousness.
Susan had been the CEO of her sons company until 2010; what ultimately transpired weighed heavily on her.
Posen hoped that by landing at a major American brand, he would alleviate some of her worries.
I really needed her to feel that I was okay, Posen says.
(Susan continues to undergo treatment.)
Ball believes that Posen ultimately ended up with the perfect job for him.
Could Gap, which was founded in 1969 as a records and jeans shop, have a record label?
Could Banana Republic become a hospitality brand, with its own line of hotels?
Still, the stakes are high, both for Gaps legacy and for Posens career.
But Posen has more perspective now.
I still care deeply, but I wont do high drama, he says.
Its exhausting and its silly.
The reality is that hes part of something larger now that isnt really about Posen at all.
It was there before me, and it will be there after, he says.
It sounded like the great humbling of Zac Posen.
When youve had your name taken from you, its pretty humbling, he says.
Plus, his priorities have expanded.
He and Ball would like to have childrentheyve agreed on twoand theyre still getting to know their new city.
Back in New York their evenings were spent at the ballet, the philharmonic, the opera.
Posen seems introspective when he tells me, Youre on this planet for a real short amount of time.
Youre probably not going to be remembered, sorry to say.
Life kind of recycles itself.
Were not that different from a leaf, disintegrating in all its humility.
Special Thanks to Hook Studios and Hook Props
