The Gap Denim on Your Own campaign, released on 11 August, arrives with a cover version at its centre: Malcolm Todd’s original rendition of Robyn’s ‘Dancing on My Own’, recorded specifically for the project and built, as Todd tells it, from a standing start of creative trust. That combination of a well-chosen song and an unhurried, self-possessed young musician is not accidental. It is, in a sense, the whole argument of the campaign.
Todd, 22, has been building a following since he released his debut EP, Demos Before Prom, in 2022. His is a particular kind of internet likability: earnest, ego-less, apparently unperformed. He calls himself a ‘wholesome rockstar’ on his Instagram spam account, that secondary feed where celebrities and musicians post less curated, more revealing content, and his audience takes the self-description at face value. Gap has taken it at face value too, casting him alongside Inde Navarrette in a campaign whose theme (self-expression, doing your own thing, denim as a kind of personal grammar) maps neatly onto what Todd has been communicating since before anyone was watching.
The Gap Denim on Your Own campaign’s creative team
The production behind the campaign is, on paper, substantial. According to Gap Inc., direction was handled by Tanu Muiño, with creative direction from Calvin Leung, Head of Gap Brand Creative. Fashion and image came from Alastair McKimm, with photography by Bjorn Loos. That is a team accustomed to working at a certain scale, which makes Todd’s description of the shoot (‘like summer camp’, intimidating for ‘about 20 seconds’) either charmingly naive or an accurate account of a set that had been carefully calibrated to feel loose. Probably both.
The song choice carries its own freight. ‘Dancing on My Own’, Robyn’s 2010 anthem of solitary feeling, has accrued considerable cultural weight over the years, including a placement in HBO’s Girls that many listeners cite as the moment the track passed from pop song into something more like a generational shorthand. Todd says he is not a regular Girls watcher, though his sister is a fan. He was given several options by the Gap team and chose this one because, as he puts it, he felt ‘energetically connected to it’. From there, the label stepped back. ‘They weren’t like, “You have to make a carbon copy”,’ Todd says. ‘They were like, “You’re the musician. We trust you. Just go have fun.”‘ He brought in the musicians he works with on his album, and the result is the version that runs beneath the campaign video.
The clothes themselves are worth pausing on. According to Design Scene, Navarrette appears in the Mid Rise Straight Taper Jean, one of the new styles introduced for the season, while Todd wears the ’90s Loose Jean, a returning Gap favourite. The distinction is not merely a matter of silhouette. The ’90s Loose Jean carries a specific register (relaxed, slightly retro, pointedly unfussy) that aligns with the California-casual aesthetic Todd has arrived at after what he describes as a considerable journey through skinny, baggy and every gradation in between. ‘I’ve gone through a crazy rollercoaster of emotions,’ he says of his years experimenting with fit, ‘but it’s definitely landed on a more casual and comfortable feel.’ The jeans in the campaign are, in other words, not a stylist’s imposition. They are close to what he would reach for anyway.
He would pair them, he confirms, with flip-flops. This is a detail that keeps surfacing. Asked who his celebrity crush is and what he would be wearing in a hypothetical elevator encounter, Todd names Jessica Alba and describes the outfit as ‘Gap jeans, a funny shirt that makes her laugh and some flip-flops’. The flip-flop, in Todd’s personal wardrobe, functions less as footwear than as a statement of intent: the weather is good, layers are unnecessary, comfort is the only metric that matters. He grew up on the west side of Los Angeles, he says, in a place open-minded enough that he felt free to try whatever he wanted. The result, after some years of trying, is a style he describes in three words: ‘authentic, comfortable, and maybe sometimes random.’
The campaign sits within what has been a considerable run for the brand in 2026. Earlier in the year, Gap worked with Young Miko, and a collaboration with Hailey Bieber became one of the summer’s most discussed fashion moments. The Gap Denim on Your Own campaign extends that momentum, though its register is quieter than the Bieber collab, more interested in the texture of everyday self-expression than in viral spectacle. Whether that is a deliberate change of gear or simply a consequence of Todd’s particular energy is difficult to separate out. With this campaign, the two have become more or less the same thing.
For Todd, the whole exercise connects back to his studio practice. He invokes Deion Sanders’ mantra, ‘If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good’, as his principle for turning up to record. The outfit changes depending on what makes him feel ready on a given day. Sometimes a suit, sometimes just shorts and socks. The Gap Denim on Your Own campaign is, in that sense, a fair self-portrait: not a makeover, but a confirmation of something that was already there.
