Every Fashion Person I Know Is Feral for the Old Navy x Christopher John Rogers Collaboration

"Fun, right?" Zac Posen says, gesturing to a clothing rack of candy-striped shirt dresses and chartreuse midi skirts covered in black and brown blobs. "It’s like, Ah, yes! Spring. Everything is elevated and cool, with this daytime disco attitude."

We’re in a corner suite on the 15th floor of Gap Inc.’s Tribeca office, and Posen is walking me through Old Navy’s new collaboration with Christopher John Rogers two days before its April 15 launch. Rogers, a New York-based American designer known for his exuberant, colorful eye, is there to greet me, too.

The two designers take me through the 43-piece Old Navy x CJR capsule, pointing out their favorites along the way. A drop-waist maxi skirt in pixelated florals and barrel-leg jeans that the Old Navy team tailored more like trousers than typical denim. An eight-color striped sweater tee and matching pencil skirt that Rogers anticipates his "squirrels will love." (That's a term of endearment for fans of CJR’s namesake brand, including Zendaya, Michelle Obama, Rihanna, and Anne Hathaway.) A black one-piece swimsuit slashed with every color of the rainbow, and a hot pink and cherry red canvas tote bag to take to the beach. (Posen, who was appointed as the executive vice president and creative director of Gap Inc. in 2023, calls it the "tote of the season.")

It’s bright and playful, but no piece from the Old Navy x CJR collab feels too out-there. It’s easy to imagine wearing the baggy navy shirt dress or puff-sleeve blouse with different-colored buttons to the office. The multicolored buttons are a nod to Patrick Kelly, a pioneering Black American designer Rogers cites as a "fashion elder."

Still, there’s a clear sense that the collection is poking fun at a minimal capsule wardrobe—all those neutrals and clean, inconspicuous shapes. "The initial inspiration was this idea of twisting and subverting American classics," Rogers explains. "Stretching out what a stripe can look like, exploring different ways to express a polka dot. Taking denim and white shirting, adding fun with volume, and playing with proportion."

Color was another avenue where Rogers let loose. "I like to pick colors that feel both and either—greens that sit in between green and yellow, reds that are cooler, almost orange," says the designer, who worked directly with Old Navy’s head of design and product development team on the collaboration. "It really stretches out what colors can be and ensures nothing is too, too classic." A basque-waist halter dress in red-orange persimmon and a garment-dyed denim set in "pukey green"—the designer's exact turn of phrase—illustrate his point well.

Rogers’s kaleidoscopic POV was a primary reason why Posen tapped him for Old Navy’s second American designer collaboration, following a capsule with Anna Sui this past fall. "I wanted to work with Christopher because I knew he’d bring a level of sophistication, vibrancy, wearability, and versatility to color and print," says the retailer’s chief creative officer. "He's a real talent and also just the sweetest guy." At this, Rogers—who took home the prestigious CFDA Emerging Designer Award in 2020, the same year he launched his namesake brand—smiles.

Beyond being an industry darling and the crowning jewel of New York City’s luxury fashion scene, Rogers is also known for regularly partnering with accessible retailers. His collection with J.Crew was the highlight of Fall 2024 for fashion people on a budget. Those who shopped his 2021 capsule with Target—or attempted to before it sold out—will fondly remember the mood-boosting lime green trapeze dresses and electric floral maxis.

"Growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I didn't have access to designer clothing, so I shopped at Target, J. Crew, and Old Navy,”"Rogers says. "Being able to provide someone with taste, who’s interested in fashion, with the tools for self-expression is really important to me. Because, regardless of price point, you should be able to find something that feels like a reflection of who you are." CJR x Old Navy starts at $24.99 and caps at $84.99.

Rogers also adds that working on accessible retailer collabs is a healthy reminder that sometimes it really just isn’t that deep. "Yes, it is fashion, but it's also just clothes. Like, girl, please, it's a skirt and a top. Let's just go ahead and shop. Don't make it complicated."

Even still, Rogers's "squirrels" can’t help but clamor to get his work into their closets.

A few hours after my in-office preview with Rogers and Posen, I went to the collaboration’s launch party in Old Navy’s Times Square location. Models of all sizes wearing polka-dot two-pieces and rainbow-striped maxi dresses danced on top of tables. A gigantic disco ball hung and twirled above our heads. Katie Holmes posed for a photo with Kimora Lee, who fronts the CJR x Old Navy official campaign alongside her daughters, Ming and Aoki.

The free bar and celebrity sightings aside, the main appeal of the event was early access to shop the collection. I watched Rachel Scott, creative director of Proenza Schouler and founder of Diotima, emerge from a back room with a white drop-waist dress draped over her arm. Gayle King was partial to the polka dots, adding both a silk scarf and a midi skirt into a CJR x Old Navy-branded shopping bag. A fashion editor friend told me he commuted from Ridgewood, Queens, a 45-minute, two-train journey just for this: "Only CJR could get me to Times Square on a Monday night."

It’s Rogers's world, and we all want to live in it. Thanks to Old Navy, everyone can—that is, before the capsule inevitably sells out.

Shop More of the Christopher John Rogers x Old Navy Collaboration

Old Navy x Christopher John Rogers is now available online and in Old Navy stores.