The billionaire founder of luxury fashion brand Lululemon once confessed that he named the company Lululemon because “it was funny to watch Japanese people try to say it”, but we can only guess what group of people he’s talking about with his latest controversial quote.
Chip Wilson, who stepped down as Lululemon CEO 10 years ago, has slammed the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts, insisting that exclusivity trumps inclusivity.
Wilson, who has net a worth of $8.7B, said in an interview with Forbes: “They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody. 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.”
Hmm. I wonder who these certain customers are? Is he talking about poor people? Fat people? Shoplifters? The internet has some ideas:
Translation: my brand exclusively caters to white women.
— Fahad K🇺🇸 (@AllAboutFKK) January 3, 2024
Lululemon has always been a racist company. To be honest, their products are expensive and aren’t even that good anyway. Their CEO is basically saying he wants rich white folks only in their stores 🙄.
— Lucia Princess (@LuciaPrincess8) January 3, 2024
Only beautiful fit people should wear the brand is what he thinks. No overweight people allowed.
— Shelleybleu (@shelleybleu) January 3, 2024
He doesn’t like Asians
— Randy (@Randycomesup) January 3, 2024
Fat women old women black women Indian women. Token Asians and latinas as long as they are size zero might be considered
— Ali (@Alicatz121) January 3, 2024
One of the many reasons I never liked @lululemon
— Birgit Umaigba Omoruyi 🇳🇬🇨🇦 (@birgitomo) January 3, 2024
Lululemon ceo said he don’t want black people, asian people or obese people in his clothing omg that’s so bold
— Ҝ (@__kdash_) January 4, 2024
Looking into Chip Wilson’s history a bit more, it does actually seem like he’s talking about overweight people. After all, there was a time when Lululemon was the hottest, trendiest brand out there, worn by only the slimmest and fittest women with the worst personalities on Earth. That’s the Lululemon that Chip Wilson built! They didn’t even used to make sizes that fit larger customers.
But it seems that ever since Chip stepped down as CEO, the new Lululemon bosses are making clothes for everyone. Gross!
Still, he shouldn’t be complaining too much. Chip has added almost $4 billion to his net worth since 2020, all because of the rise in value of his 8% stake in Lululemon stock. So clearly not enforcing BMI limits on your customer base has worked a charm in the long run.
Oppositely, Victoria’s Secret recently announced a change in direction after their ‘woke’ rebrand lead to a massive sales drop. So maybe Chip Wilson is just trying to set some boundaries, in a roundabout kind of way.
