Lululemon isn’t for fat people – just like McDonald's isn’t for health-conscious eaters
The customer is always right… And certainly never fat. You’d think Chip Wilson would have got the memo by now. After all, the billionaire founder of athleisure wear brand Lululemon was forced to step down in 2013 after saying in a Bloomberg TV interview that the only reason the brand’s leggings occasionally went see-through was because “some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it. It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there.”
Cue every member of the Lululemon board screaming “stop talking!” at the television, a social media pile-on, and Wilson being given the top spot in a blog entitled, “People I Want To Punch In The Throat”.
Eleven years on, the 68-year-old Canadian doesn’t seem to have learnt from his PR disaster. In fact, he’s doubled down on the customer “fat shaming” in a new interview with Forbes, insisting: “The definition of a brand is that you are not everything to everybody… You have got to be clear that you do not want certain customers coming in.”
Lululemon has, again, been quick to distance itself from their former chairman, stressing that he is no longer involved in their extremely “diverse” company, but I’m both highly amused by the whole fiasco – and inclined to agree with Wilson’s thinking.
When did companies decide they had to be “everything to everybody”? Virtue signalling aside, is there any proof this is a successful strategy from a consumer point of view?
I don’t care how many supposedly healthy options McDonald’s adds to their menu, it will never be my first port of call if I fancy a salad. If I walk through those golden arches, it is with a firm view to ingesting a week’s worth of calories.
Similarly, I am not offended by my 12-year-old daughter’s favourite clothes shop, Brandy Melville, only catering for Lilliputians. As a woman in her 40s with hips and a chest, I will simply choose to shop in one of the thousands of other high street outlets catering for adult females with those attributes.
Part of Lululemon’s appeal has always been its elitism. Your average British woman doesn’t spend £118 on a pair of “Swift Speed High-Rise Tight” leggings. Your average British woman wouldn’t spend that on her monthly gym membership, would laugh off the notion of any fabric possessing “butt-lifting technology” – and by the way, is currently a size 16.
I’m aware that inclusivity is the buzzword of the day, year, and probably decade, but get too inclusive and you lose your exclusivity. For Lululemon, that may well be its USP.
