Founder Chip Wilson is an Ayn Rand fan and the company takes its values from Atlas Shrugged.
Late in 2011, the company began printing the phrase "Who is John Galt?" on its shopping bags. Galt, of course, is the star of Rand's "objectivist" novel, "Atlas Shrugged," which argues that the naked pursuit of self-interest should be society's highest ambition. Founder Chip Wilson read the book when he was 18.
Wilson believes the birth-control pill and smoking are responsible for high divorce rates — and the existence of Lululemon itself.
Here's what Wilson says of his company's origins:
"Women’s lives changed immediately [after the pill]. ... Men did not know how to relate to the new female. Thus came the era of divorces.
"With divorce and publicity around equality, women in the 1970′s/80′s found themselves operating as “Power Women.” The media convinced women that they could win at home and be a man’s equal in the business world. Women put in 12 hour work days, attempted to keep a clean and orderly house, and give their children all the love they had pre-divorce. What they gave up however was their social life, exercise, balance, and sleep.
"The 1980′s gave way to Power Women dressing like men in boardroom attire with big shoulder pads. They went to 3 martini lunches and smoked because this is what their “successful” fathers did in the business world.
"Breast cancer also came into prominence in the 1990’s. I suggest this was due to the number of cigarette-smoking Power Women who were on the pill (initial concentrations of hormones in the pill were very high) and taking on the stress previously left to men in the working world.
"Ultimately, Lululemon was formed because female education levels, breast cancer, yoga/athletics and the desire to dress feminine came together all at one time."
Wilson created the name 'Lululemon' because he thinks Japanese people can't say the letter 'L.'
He told Canada's National Post Business Magazine, "It's funny to watch them try and say it," when asked about his views on the Japanese pronunciation of the company's name.
In 2009, he wrote:
It was thought that a Japanese marketing firm would not try to create a North American sounding brand with the letter “L” because the sound does not exist in Japanese phonetics. By including an “L” in the name it was thought the Japanese consumer would find the name innately North American and authentic.
In essence, the name “lululemon” has no roots and means nothing other than it has 3 “L’s” in it. Nothing more and nothing less.
Wilson said he favors using child labor in Third World countries.
Canada's The Tyee reported:
According to those who attended BALLE BC conference, Wilson told the delegates third world children should be allowed to work in factories because it provides them with much-needed wages. They also say he argued that even in Canada there is a place for 12- and 13-year-old street youths to find work in local factories as an alternative to collecting handouts.
"I look at it the same way the WTO does it, and that is that the single easiest way to spread wealth around the world is to have poor countries pull themselves out of poverty," Wilson told The Tyee.
Wilson is one of those people who refers to himself in third person.
He originally wrote this blog post about himself:
Chip felt that the distributor had paid a premium for the “L” so he challenged himself to come up with a name that had 3 “L’s” for his new company.
The company deleted the post after we first noticed it. It has since been repurposed here.
The ideal customer at Lululemon is "a 32-year-old professional single woman named Ocean who makes $100,000 a year." Here she is:
Ocean is also "engaged, has her own condo, is traveling, fashionable, has an hour and a half to work out a day," Wilson told once told the New York Times.
Wilson once suggesting in a Bloomberg TV interview that some women's bodies "just don't actually work" for his yoga pants. "They don't work for some women's bodies ... it's really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time, how much they use it."
Read more about that disastrous Bloomberg TV interview here. Wilson was then advised by his board not to conduct any more media interviews.
Some believe working at Lululemon is like being in a cult. This Lululemon staffer wrote on the company blog about a naked yoga session she attended.
Read the Lululemon naked yoga blog post here.
Douglas Atkin, author of The Culting of Brands, once told Fast Company, "It's the first time I've heard of anyone almost directly using the techniques of cults and applying them to their business."
Lululemon store staff are not just being friendly. They're gathering data on you.
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that CEO Christine Day doesn't use focus groups. Rather, she spies on customers herself, as does her staff:
… Ms. Day spends hours each week in Lulu stores observing how customers shop, listening to their complaints, and then using the feedback to tweak product and stores.
Lulu also trains its workers to eavesdrop, placing the clothes-folding tables on the sales floor near the fitting rooms rather than in a back room so that workers can overhear complaints.
One customer described the experience this way:
When I buy stuff at Lululemon, they have often asked me where I work out, as well as who my favorite instructors are. This is not just idle talk — this kind of information is self-consciously gathered by Lululemon sales staff and then reported back to Lululemon HQ every two weeks.
Wilson believes employees should ask their bosses this creepy question about surviving shipwrecks:
"12 people have been shipwrecked on a deserted island. There is one boat that will hold 6 people and if the 6 people work perfectly as team they have a 10% chance of survival. The people left behind will perish. Would you take me and if yes why and if not why not?"
In 2007, Lululemon falsely claimed its clothes were made with seaweed.
The company later agreed to retract the claims.
Wilson believes that if you get sick, it's your fault.
In his discussion of "The Secret" on his corporate blog, Wilson argued that illness was mostly a choice. He wrote:
Health attracts health
Sickness attracts sickness
One of the company's corporate mantras is,
Stress is related to 99% of all illness.
And if your life isn't "great," then that's your fault too.
Greatness is demanding the best of everything and doing what is required to get it. Greatness is demanding friends who demand the best, demanding the best wife or husband and the best job with the best pay. Greatness is demanding the company you work for to make the best products and be uncompromising in its promise to its customers. Greatness is demanding the best out of one’s self.
In 2012, Wilson resigned as chief innovation and branding officer.
The company did not say if the move was linked to the string of controversial headlines Wilson had generated. He stayed on as chairman.
His duties were taken by CEO Christine Day (pictured).
Wilson later invested $14 million in a tea company.
In March 2013, The company sold some faulty pants that went see-through if you did the 'downward dog' yoga position. It took 6% off the stock.
The strategic difficulty was Lululemon's dependence on a single supplier for its stretchy Luon material.
According to Quartz:
Lululemon relies on a single Taiwanese manufacturer for its Luon fabric. ... Single supplier-reliance ensures Lululemon’s manufacturing know-how does not get spread too widely, but also creates risks of bad shipments spoiling sales performance.
These are the pants in question: Lululemon's incredibly popular $98 "Astro" line. They're super-comfortable and stylish enough to be worn outside the gym.
The pants are so valuable to Lululemon that the company once sued Calvin Klein for making a pair a bit like them.
Lululemon's success has inspired imitators. Dear Kate launched a line of yoga pants that can be worn safely with no underwear in 2014, shortly after the see-through debacle.
Dear Kate CEO Julie Sygiel says her products use a "silky soft, patent-pending fabric" that is wicking, stain releasing, and leak resistant.
Lululemon then recalled more than 318,000 women's tops due to dangerous hoodie drawstrings.
If the elastic drawstrings got caught on something, they snapped back and hit consumers in the face, according to a notice from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Lululemon's ideal male customer is named "Duke." Here he is, also from the company's Facebook page:
Duke is named after one of Wilson's sons. He's 35 and an "athletic opportunist" who enjoys surfing in the summer and snowboarding in the winter. Duke makes more than Ocean and is willing to pay up for quality.
In 2015, amid surging sales, Lululemon introduced these "anti-ball-crushing pants" for men.
One reviewer said, "They are the most comfortable pants I have ever worn. They are extremely versatile. They can be dressed up or down."
Some men also complained that Lululemon's "no boxer boxer" shorts fell apart too easily.
"I just bought a new pair today (not knowing they had replaced their previous underwear) and it is horrible!" one customer said. "They feel cheap and the new 'pouch' is very uncomfortable."
This year, Chip Wilson quit his post as a board member and moved to sell his entire stake in Lululemon, worth more than $1 billion. That would end his formal association with the company completely.
He wanted to fund a new startup, Kit & Ace.
