Dive Brief:

• Gap Inc. has tapped two retail veterans to its merchandising and design teams at Gap, Women’s Wear Daily reports.

• Steve Sare will be the brand’s president of global merchandising, replacing Michelle DeMartini. Sare was most recently CMO at Fast Retailing’s UNIQLO brand and previously in merchandising positions at Express and PacSun. 

• Alessandra Brunialti is returning to the company, having been at Banana Republic from 1995 to 2011, and will be VP of women’s design. She was most recently creative design consultant at alice + olivia and also worked at Calvin Klein, vince inc., and Nicole Miller in design and product development.

Dive Insight:

These appointments are the latest attempt by Gap to return to its glory days as a go-to apparel brand. The brand has admitted that some of its recent merchandising flops have had a direct hit on sales, reporting its fifth straight quarterly decline in the most recent quarter.

Gap's high-profile appointment of Rebekka Bay, brought on to help the retailer with its fashion mix, was short-lived when new Gap Inc. CEO Art Peck let her go earlier this year. Hopefully for the brand these new hires can help Gap respond to two of the top issues plaguing it: responding to increased competition from fast fashion retailers and speeding up its supply chain to react faster to fashion trends.