Doris Fisher, Gap cofounder, dies at 94 – The San Francisco Standard
Doris Fisher, the San Francisco businesswoman and philanthropist who cofounded Gap Inc. and coined the name that would become one of the most recognizable brands in American fashion, has died. She was 94.
Her death was announced Sunday by family to friends in an email, which was obtained by The Standard. Sources close to the family told The Standard she died Saturday.
“She lived her values with purpose and integrity and believed that partnership made life richer,” her family said in a statement. “As a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, her love shaped generations. She was a builder at heart — shaping organizations, investing in people, creating possibility — and she carried this spirit through every part of her life. We believe her legacy lives on not only in what she created, but in how she lived.”
Fisher cofounded the Gap with her late husband, Donald Fisher, in 1969, growing it into a company with $15.4 billion in sales and more than 3,500 stores worldwide (opens in new tab), including its subsidiaries Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Athleta.
She is credited with naming the company, a reference to the generation gap between young people and their parents that defined the tumultuous era.
The pair had a simple idea: to make it easier to find a pair of jeans. They opened the first Gap store on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco as a side project to their retail efforts selling Levi’s jeans and records. Fisher served as the company’s merchandiser until 2003 and sat on the board until 2009 and was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes.
Gap Inc. marked Fisher’s 90th birthday in August 2021 with a companywide day of service (opens in new tab) in her name. In an email to employees, then-CEO Sonia Syngal described Fisher as the company’s “cofounder, first working mom, and original arbiter of cool,” crediting her with instilling in Gap “a deep love of individual style along with an unwavering commitment to giving back.”
Syngal noted that when Doris and Don Fisher opened their first store in 1969, they did so as equals. “She captured the American zeitgeist,” Syngal wrote, “and set the stage for the brand to become the cultural icon it is today.”
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Syngal described Fisher as someone who was “ahead of her time” in her commitment to giving back, and whose belief in collective action directly shaped the company’s guiding principles. “Doris is a beacon of what our best looks like,” Syngal wrote. “She has inspired me and generations of others to aspire to our full potential, do good and do more.” As Fisher herself once said of her philanthropic drive: “We can always do more.”
The company she built honored her legacy just weeks ago. In April, Gap Inc. President and CEO Richard Dickson announced the launch (opens in new tab) of The Doris Fisher Creators Program, a mentorship initiative developed in partnership with the Fashion Institute of Technology. The program, described as a reflection of “her legacy of creativity, curiosity, and belief in people,” connects FIT students with Gap Inc. leaders and provide pathways into the fashion industry.
“There is simply no equal to Doris Fisher,” Dickson said in a statement. “In Gap-speak, she was a true original. Doris was a full partner in Gap Inc.’s founding and a path-breaking entrepreneur at a time when that was highly unusual for women.”
Fisher was equally formidable as a philanthropist. She and her late husband donated more than $70 million to the Knowledge is Power Program, helping build it into the largest network of charter schools in the country. She loaned her collection of 1,100 works (opens in new tab) by 185 artists (opens in new tab) — including Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, and Richard Serra — to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The 100-year loan agreement was unusual and, at times, controversial (opens in new tab), raising questions about the extent of private collectors’ influence on a museum. But alongside a $250 million gift to the museum, it helped transform SFMoMA.
“Doris had a quieter aesthetic” than her husband’s tastes, the museum’s former director Neal Benezra said. “She loved Agnes Martin, she loved drawings, and so, although it’s one very coherent collection, their passions were slightly different, and it added up to a world-class collection of all of the artists.”
Fisher was born August 23, 1931, in San Francisco to Harvard lawyer and state legislator B. Joseph Feigenbaum and Dorothy Feigenbaum. She graduated from Stanford University as one of its first women to earn an economics degree. She and her husband were inducted (opens in new tab) into the California Hall of Fame in 2011.
Fisher is survived by her three sons — Robert, William, and John — who continue to manage the business, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren. John Fisher is the owner of the Athletics baseball team.
