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Lululemon’s billionaire founder Chip Wilson blasted the firm for prioritising diversity and inclusivity efforts over exclusivity.
In an interview with Forbes, the 68-year-old former athleisure CEO insisted that making Lululemon merchandise extra accessible would damage the model. He advised 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 first time Mr Wilson has courted controversy and expressed disdain in direction of Lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing”, with him having repeatedly sparked outrage over his anti-Asian, sexist, and fatphobic feedback.
In an interview for Bloomberg Television’s Street Smart in 2013, the founder responded to mounting criticisms that the company’s standard leggings have been low-quality and see-through, telling the outlet that they weren’t meant for everybody – particularly, curvier girls. “They don’t work for some women’s bodies,” he stated, blaming girls’s our bodies for the leggings changing into see-through. “It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there.”
A Maryland Lululemon retailer clapped again at the then-CEO’s feedback in a poignant window show that stated: “Love: cups of chai/apple pies/rubbing thighs?” It was quickly taken down and Lululemon posted an apology on Twitter, now often called X, saying that Mr Wilson’s remarks weren’t reflective of the company’s stance.
The businessman stepped down as CEO in December of that 12 months, and two years later in 2015, would utterly depart the company’s board. But earlier than he was publicly ousted, he claimed that selected a model identify together with three L’s particularly as a result of the sound doesn’t exist in Japanese phonetics. “It’s funny to watch them try and say it,” he advised Canada’s National Post Business Magazine at the time.
Despite his claims that inclusivity efforts would spell doom for the firm in the long run, he has continued to revenue from the firm, having just lately added practically $4bn to his web price since 2020 on account of an 8 per cent rise in stake in Lululemon inventory.
The Canadian firm has been actively attempting to shake off its popularity as a model completely made for upper-middle-class white girls through advertising and marketing and instating diversity and inclusion initiatives.
In November 2020, the firm shaped a brand new division named Inclusion Diversity, Equity, and Action – also called IDEA – that was tasked to enhance the diversity of employees and take the lead on DEI coaching, growth, and discourse. Unfortunately, dozens of workers revealed that the transfer had been nothing greater than tokenistic, and hadn’t amounted to any actual, substantial change inside the firm.
Employees defined to Business of Fashion that the division’s creation was a transfer to guard the company’s popularity, reasonably than having the finest curiosity of its workers and clients at coronary heart. They claimed that the firm would typically deny Black workers promotions in favour of “less-qualified white counterparts.”
The firm responded to the allegations in a press release to BoF, saying they’ve “made considerable progress since launching IDEA, and we are proud of the goals we have achieved, which include maintaining a continuous two-way dialogue with our people.”
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