Lululemon founder Chip Wilson is dismissive of the “whole diversity and inclusion thing” on the athletic attire firm, based on a Forbes story printed Tuesday.
“They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody,” Wilson informed the outlet. “And I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody … You’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.”
Wilson, who’s now not with Lululemon, additionally criticized the corporate’s determination to incorporate individuals in its promoting whom he deemed “sickly” and “unhealthy”-looking and “not inspirational,” based on Forbes.
Wilson based the attire model in 1998 and resigned as chairman in 2013, after making fatphobic remarks in response to a backlash the corporate obtained for the sheerness of a number of the model’s leggings.
“Frankly, some women’s bodies just don’t actually work [for the yoga pants],” Wilson mentioned on Bloomberg TV’s “Street Smart” program in November 2013, months after the corporate initially got here below criticism for promoting yoga pants that turned out to be see-through. “It’s more really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time, how much they use it.”
In current years, the corporate has tried to distance itself from Wilson’s notorious feedback, introducing prolonged sizing in 2020. The retailer now says its core values embody “personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, honesty, courage, connection, fun, and inclusion.” In 2020, the corporate created a staff devoted to the rules of inclusion, variety, fairness and motion, or “IDEA.”
However, some Lululemon staff have mentioned the corporate lacks racial sensitivity. One former worker informed Business Insider in 2021 that Lululemon remained an emblem of “privileged white wellness.”
Wilson, a 68-year-old billionaire, nonetheless owns an 8% stake in Lululemon. He has made or been accused of constructing a lot of controversial feedback through the years — together with blaming divorce charges on contraception tablets and allegedly suggesting that baby labor is appropriate.
He has additionally repeatedly advised that the “Lululemon” title was chosen with the Japanese market in thoughts.
“A Japanese marketing firm would not try to create a North American sounding brand with the letter ‘L’ because the sound does not exist in Japanese phonetics,” Wilson wrote in a weblog submit for the corporate in 2009, Business Insider reported. “By including an ‘L’ in the name, it was thought the Japanese consumer would find the name innately North American and authentic.”
It’s been rumored for years that Wilson at one level mocked Japanese individuals for supposedly mispronouncing the title “Lululemon.”
“It’s funny to watch them try and say it,” Wilson allegedly mentioned in 2005, based on the Canadian outlet The Tyee.
Wilson later denied making these feedback.
