Dresses from 90s brand grace red carpet after rough patch in which brand closed stores and broke tie with Kanye West

This year’s awards season brought a surprise fashion comeback: Gap. Everyone from Timothée Chalamet and Demi Moore to Cynthia Erivo and Anne Hathaway has worn the US high-street brand on the red carpet in the past year, and this month parent company Gap Inc released its most recent financial results – with sales up 7%.

Joy Montgomery, commerce editor at Vogue, describes Hathaway’s decision to wear a luxe version of a white shirt dress later sold in store, which the actor wore to a Bulgari event last year – as “a moment that the fashion world sat up and realised that something was changing”.