The History of Lululemon

Founder Chip Wilson had a passion for yoga and athletic fabrics that lead to the origins of Lululemon. Two years after its founding in 1998, the company debuted its first store in Kitsalono, a beach town in Vancouver BC. From the beginning, its vision was to not only sell products but also to promote a healthy lifestyle. The company quickly began to expand and open more stores worldwide (Lululemon Athletica).

Since its founding, Lululemon has faced an array of public relations problems, many of which are credited to its founder and former CEO, Chip Wilson. Wilson is known for his degrading comments and outlandish lifestyle perspectives, which are at the core of the company’s manifesto.

Lululemon has also faced issues regarding the quality of its products, the treatment of its customers and the conditions of its overseas garment factories.

To overcome these public relations crises, Lululemon has done many things to promote community, healthy living and positive customer relations. They offer free yoga classes in their store, have an excellent presence on social media, have a well-trained customer service team, and have hired third party auditors to improve their relations with overseas manufacturing companies.

Our Focus

We highlight some of the previously mentioned public relations issues that Lululemon has been forced to deal with. Our focus issues revolve around the following:

• Wilson’s controversial public apology – After Wilson’s controversial statements about women’s bodies, he made a public apology. However, his apology failed to acknowledge the women he offended and in turn upset even more people.
• The “bend-over-test”– In order to prove that pants were see through, employees asked women to bend over in front of them to prove the poor quality before allowing returns.
• The company recycled its recalled products – After the company sold sheer pants and were forced to recall them, Lululemon lost millions of dollars in revene but they recycled the product to prevent waste.
• The hiring of a new product manager – In an attempt to change its image and alter their sheer pant, Lululemon hired a new chief executive.
• Wilson defends child labor – When the company expanded its production overseas in 2005, Wilson negligently defended the practices of child labor. The bad public relations led to the hiring of a new production manager.
• Customer service team steps up – When Wilson stated his opinion towards the “thigh gap” and how the sheer appearance was due to the body shape of the woman, the customer service team was able to reassure its customers of its products.