“Lululemon is committed to creating and fostering an inclusive, diverse and welcoming environment within its organization and communities.
We have made significant progress since launching our Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action (IDEA) function, and we are proud of the goals we have achieved.”
This statement, shared by email to
CNN
on January 4, is signed by Canadian yoga clothing company Lululemon.
It comes after the controversial remarks made two days earlier by Chip Wilson, the founder of the brand, during an interview with
Forbes
magazine .
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In this interview, the former boss of the company
(he left office in 2015, Editor's note)
spoke about diversity, explaining that Lululemon was trying to imitate Gap, while "the definition of a brand is not aimed at everyone.
And he continues: “You need to be clear that you don’t want certain customers to come.”
Chip Wilson added that the people featured in Lululemon's ads are "unhealthy," "sickly" and "uninspiring."
Lululemon preferred to qualify this speech on CNN by taking care to clarify that the ex-boss was not speaking on behalf of the company and that “his opinions in no way reflected the values and beliefs of Lululemon”.
The controversy of a successful brand
Unknown in France until a few years ago, Lululemon has nevertheless been a hit in the United States for more than a decade, where its comfortable and stylish yoga clothing has been very successful.
From its beginnings in 1998, its founder Chip Wilson wanted to bring more quality and techniques to yoga clothing.
Twenty-six years later,
Fashion Network
recalled that Lululemon dominated sales in the athleisure sector “with 59% of transactions in the third quarter of the year.”
These jumped in the last quarter of 2022, reaching the colossal sum of 8.1 billion dollars in turnover (7.46 billion euros).
Also read: Louis Vuitton's jewelry in a new book, Lululemon's power dressing... L'Impératif Madame
Enough to make it a serious competitor to the behemoths of the sports clothing industry, like Nike and Adidas... especially since it launched into sports shoes in 2022. If Lululemon is on the rise, and influencers are snapping up the brand's pieces on TikTok, she owes it in part to the year 2020. “She took advantage of the pandemic, when soft and comfortable clothing was popular with a clientele under house arrest, in order to develop,” recalls a paper from Les
Échos
.
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Obviously, the words made by Chip Wilson resonate even more in an era where the notions of inclusiveness and diversity are prioritized in the clothing industry.
Especially since this is not the first time that the latter finds himself at the center of controversy.
Already in 2004, he explained to the
National Post Business Magazine
that the name Lululemon came from the fact that the Japanese had difficulty pronouncing the letter L. He saw it as a marketing tool.
“It’s funny to see them try to pronounce it,” he admitted.
In 2013, he explained to a TV reporter from the
Bloomberg
media that “some women's bodies don't work for pants”, putting forward “the friction of the thighs” and the “pressure exerted” as reasons.
Words that could be costly, like what happened to Victoria's Secret.
After a series of scandals, the brand caused its group to lose $250 million in 2019, before disappearing from the media landscape.