The Lululemon Controversy

I’m a self-declared Lululemon addict and I spend weeks saving up to buy a pair of Wunder Unders or new tank top. Considering that Lululemon is in my blog description, it was only a time before I found something Lulu related to write about! I found this article while going through some tracked tags on Tumblr and I think it’s definitely and interesting read. While this definitely isn’t the first defaming article I’ve read about Lululemon, I can never stop myself from ogling their new line of pants and summer patterns. What I want to do, however, is draw attention to some of the points that Tech Mommy brought up in her blog:

His (Chip Wilson – founder of Lululemon) comments bring up some questions:

1. If plus sized women would need to spend more money for extra fabric in their clothing, would you give extra small women a discount? 

2. Why does Lululemon sell “plus sized” mens wear? Their sizing goes up to 40″. This would be a size 18-20 for women. 

3. Why did the XL sizing of Lululemon move from a size 14 to a size 12 in 2009? 

4. Now that Lululemon has moved their manufacturing to China from Canada, wouldn’t the cost of making bigger clothes be even less of an issue?5. If this is how the founder of the company feels towards plus sized women, how is message being presented to their staff members?

I don’t think these questions are limited to just Lululemon, but they’re definitely questions to think about for all brands. You don’t see brands like Nike showing plus size models in their advertisements and while I can respect plus-size as being a healthy figure, there is such thing as people who use the term “plus-size” to justify obesity. NOTE: I’m not saying EVERYONE who is plus-size is obese, I’m just saying that I’ve heard people incorrectly label overweight as plus-size. They’re not equivalents. It’s the same stereotype people use for skinny people. Skinny does not equal anorexic.

I can already tell that this post is going to be offensive to some people but isn’t that good writing’s all about? Controversy?

The end result, for me at least, is that we live in an imperfect world. Lululemon is part of that imperfection, I mean take a look at this article. If we want something to be affordable/cheap, it comes at the cost of somewhere else, whether it is the outsourcing of labor or quality of the fabric. It’s not so much individual brands so much as our entire commodity system. If we want something that’s American manufactured, it’ll take a chunk out of our wallets. I’m not sure the boycotting of brands will help the situation but I don’t have any solutions to offer either. It’s definitely a lot of food for thought.