SAINTS PRESERVE US

 

Rubbing Thighs with Lululemon

 

Lululemon is a niche, lifestyle brand of yoga and running clothing. Lululemon is essentially a logo on a swatch of Third World cloth enhanced by a brand manifesto rife with New Age bromides: DANCE, SING, FLOSS AND TRAVEL; JEALOUSY WORKS THE OPPOSITE WAY YOU WANT IT TO; BREATHE DEEPLY; LOVE. Clearly, Lululemon is not for everybody. Especially if you’re a little above your ideal body weight or if you have an issue with other people being able to see through your pants.

 

‘Quite frankly 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.’ Alas, recently deposed Lululemon founder Chip Wilson was not discussing the favoured murder technique of Bond assassin Xenia Onatopp. No, he was blaming his core customers for the poor performance of his company’s shoddy athletic apparel.

 

Anyone who’s ever worked a day in their life knows that the customer is not always right. Still, it’s good policy not to alienate the money. If you’re disdainful of your customers, perhaps because they have yet to embrace yoga as an ideology or maybe because they’re hesitant to do one thing each day that scares them, it’s probably a best business practice to keep that sort chatter for the bathroom mirror or a discreet bartender.

 

Anyway, that sound you heard following Chip’s hasty exit was years of carefully cultivated brand equity being flushed away.