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business newsUp-and-Coming Retailers: Lululemon
The mantra-spouting label is as slick and ambitious as Nike.
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While Nike is still the largest sports apparel company in the world, another company has begun to surface as the brand to wear for athletic and yoga gear for both women and men.
Lululemon Athletica (LULU) has taken the sports clothing world by storm with an elegant, shapely take on active-wear that is just as much about a lifestyle as it is about the fabric.
Its best-known product is the Groove Pants, $98, made of Luon, the label's signature sweat-wicking fabric. The pants, like all of Lululemon’s products, are tagged with a “fancy a” symbol that looks similar to the Greek letter omega.
The Vancouver, Canada-based company behind that ubiquitous symbol now has 119 stores across North America, each one staffed with a salesforce trained to know the lifestyle as well as the products. Lululemon pays for staff members to attend yoga classes and encourages employees to cycle or walk to work and incorporate all things physical into their lives.
The company also goes above and beyond to reach customers in new, innovative ways. During non-business hours, many Lululemon shops offer free in-store yoga classes. Its New York City stores even sponsored twice-weekly yoga classes in Central Park this past summer.
In short order since its 1998 launch, Lululemon has become a status symbol for chic, healthy individuals, the same way that Nike once epitomized athletic prowess.
To be sure, the company also has its detractors. Purists tend to criticize Lululemon for co-opting yoga's anti-materialistic principles and spinning them into marketing slogans. Make a purchase at a Lululemon store, and you'll leave with a bag that says things like, "Friends are more important than money."
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