A history of Lululemon’s public scandals and gaffes

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Athleisure firm Lululemon has just lately come underneath fireplace after founder and ex-CEO Chip Wilson made derisive feedback in regards to the firm’s variety and inclusion efforts.

In an interview with Forbes, the 68-year-old former CEO insisted that making Lululemon merchandise extra accessible would harm the model. He instructed the outlet: “They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody.”

“I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody,” he continued. “You’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.”

This isn’t the primary time the corporate and its founder have sparked public outrage, with Wilson having a history of anti-Asian, sexist, and fatphobic feedback. Lululemon has made headlines lately after some of its workers accused the corporate of performative activism and tokenistic campaigns.

Long earlier than he left the corporate, Wilson claimed in 2005 that he selected a model identify that included three L’s particularly as a result of the sound doesn’t exist in Japanese phonetics. He instructed Canada’s National Post Business Magazine on the time: “It’s funny to watch them try and say it.”

Wilson, specifically, was ousted from his function as CEO after feedback he made in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Street Smart in 2013 led to backlash. At the time, the founder responded to mounting criticisms that the corporate’s standard leggings had been low-quality and see-through, telling the outlet that they weren’t meant for everybody – specifically, curvier ladies. “They don’t work for some women’s bodies,” he mentioned, blaming ladies’s our bodies for the leggings turning into sheer. “It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there.”

One of the corporate’s retail shops in Maryland referred to as out the then-CEO’s phrases in a poignant window show, writing: “Love: cups of chai/apple pies/rubbing thighs?” The firm had the show taken down and Lululemon issued an apology on Twitter, now generally known as X, distancing themselves from Wilson’s remarks.

The businessman stepped down as CEO in December of that yr, and two years later he utterly left the corporate’s board. The Canadian firm has since tried to shake off its elitist popularity as a model solely made for upper-middle-class white ladies, by enacting a variety and inclusion initiative and inclusive advertising and marketing campaigns.

In September 2020, the corporate confronted backlash for selling a Zoom workshop about “decolonising gender”, with teacher and model “ambassador” Rebby Kern, as a possibility to “resist capitalism.” The workshop was marketed as a course that might educate folks on how “gender constructs across the world have informed culture and the ways violent colonialism has erased these histories to enforce consumerism.”

Critics identified the hypocrisy in a billion-dollar-valued firm encouraging shoppers to take a stand in opposition to capitalism, whereas the corporate itself income off of capitalism. “Lululemon hosting a workshop to resist capitalism while selling us $180 yoga pants is peak 2020,” Kevin Duffey wrote on X, previously generally known as Twitter. Mattea Merta added: “WHY are you pushing an anti-capitalist Marxist workshop when you ONLY exist because of capitalism?”

In November 2020, the corporate fashioned a brand new division dubbed Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Action – often known as IDEA – to enhance the variety of workers and take the lead on DEI coaching, improvement, and discourse. Dozens of workers, nevertheless, revealed to Business of Fashion that the transfer was performative and wasn’t in keeping with the corporate’s true ethos. They added that the brand new division hadn’t enacted actual, substantial change inside the firm prefer it pledged to take action.

Employees claimed that the corporate would oftentimes select to advertise “less-qualified white counterparts” over Black staff. They instructed the outlet that IDEA was created to guard the corporate’s popularity, as a substitute of having the most effective curiosity of their workers and clients at coronary heart.