November 6, 2013: Walk into one of the 866 Gap retail stores in the United States this Holiday season, shop online at Gap.com, or visit the company’s Facebook page and you might be surprised to see the face of Indian-American designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia staring back at you.
Gap’s Holiday 2013 ad campaign, which launched this week, has drawn compliments for featuring a diverse group of personalities. Ahluwalia can be seen posing in his photograph with artist and filmmaker Quentin Jones.
Below is a sampling of the comments that can be found on Gap’s official Facebook page:
- Keenu Hundal “Saw this ad in teh [sic] downtown San Francisco store and literally stopped in my tracks. I was so happy to see you all select a Sikh male in your new ad campaign. We need to make the Sikh male image more mainstream in order to educate the general public on who we are, so that ignorace does not breed hate any longer. Thank you, Gap!”
- Navdeep Kaur “Thanks for honoring Sikh culture in your new ad campaign, Gap. #Respect”
- Nancy Ewelike “I simply love the first photo. I love how his culture is being embraced (from head adornment to full beard). Well done, GAP!”
- Satnam Singh Paprala “It felt awesome walking past this poster wearing turban…! #sikhi #proud”
- Andy Can “Wow Sikhs are now in international models”