Lululemon's billionaire founder slams the company's diversity and inclusion efforts: 'You've got to be clear that you don't want certain customers coming in'

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://fortune.com/2024/01/03/lululemons-founder-chip-wilson-diversity-
and-inclusion/

While many CEOs are shouting about their increased efforts to ramp up
diversity across their business one founder is promoting the exact
opposite.

Lululemon’s billionaire founder Chip Wilson insists that exclusivity
trumps inclusivity while blasting the posh leggings company he stepped
down from 10 years ago.

“They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody,” Wilson,
who has an estimated net worth of $8.7 billion, said in an interview with
Forbes.

“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.”

Still, the activewear giant is clearly onto something: Wilson has added
almost $4 billion to his net worth since 2020, nearly all because of the
rise in value of his 8% stake in Lululemon stock.

Chip Wilson’s controversial comments aren’t a first
It’s not the first time Wilson has expressed his disdain for his
brainchild’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing”, having repeatedly
faced backlash for anti-Asian, sexist, and fatphobic comments.

The American-Canadia entrepreneur most infamously insisted that the
company’s most popular product, its leggings, are not for everyone—or more
specifically, plus-size women—when they came under fire for being see-
through.

“They don’t work for some women’s bodies,” he told Bloomberg Television’s
Street Smart in 2013, before stepping down as the firm’s CEO and then
leaving the board entirely in 2015.

Wilson previously declared that when founding Lululemon back in 1998, he
specifically came up with a brand name that has three L’s because the
sound does not exist in Japanese phonetics.

“It’s funny to watch them try and say it,” he told Canada’s National Post
Business Magazine.

He has also spoken in favor of children working in factories to earn money
and avoid poverty, blamed birth control for rising divorce rates, and
described plus-size clothing as “a money loser” for businesses.

In a statement provided to Fortune, a Lululemon company spokesperson said
that Chip Wilson “does not speak for lululemon, and his comments do not
reflect our company views or beliefs. Chip has not been involved with the
company since his resignation from the board in 2015 and we are a very
different company today.”

A double standard
Since Wilson’s departure, Lululemon has been trying to shake off the idea
that it’s exclusively for upper-middle-class white women of a certain
stature through inclusive marketing and by bolstering its diversity and
inclusion commitments.

But such efforts have often been labeled tokenistic by celebrities,
consumers, and staff members alike.

In November 2020, the Canadian-headquartered international company formed
a new department named Inclusion Diversity, Equity, and Action, known
internally as IDEA, which was tasked with increasing the diversity of
staff and expanding DEI training, development and discourse.

However, over a dozen employees at the firm told the Business of Fashion
it was launched to protect the company’s image first and foremost and that
the company often denied Black employees job opportunities in favor of
“less-qualified white counterparts.”

In its statement to BoF, Lululemon said it “has made considerable progress
since launching IDEA, and we are proud of the goals we have achieved,
which include maintaining a continuous two-way dialogue with our people.”

At around the same time, it came under fire for promoting a yoga workshop
billed as an opportunity to “resist capitalism.”

The class promised to teach participants how “gender constructs across the
world have informed culture and the ways violent colonialism has erased
these histories to enforce consumerism.”

However, at around $120 for a pair of leggings, many were quick to point
out the brand’s hypocrisy.

“Lululemon IS capitalism. It is literally a privately-owned corporation
that raked in half a billion dollars in pure profits last year, merely by
selling overpriced yoga pants to women willing and able to pay for this
luxury,” a popular post on the matter on X, formerly known as Twitter,
read.

“WHY are you pushing an anti-capitalist Marxist workshop when you ONLY
exist because of capitalism?” another decried.

Lululemon is “committed to creating and fostering an inclusive, diverse,
and welcoming environment throughout our organization and across our
communities,” the company spokesperson told Fortune, adding that that it
is proud of the goals achieved and progress made since launching its
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action (IDEA) function. “We also
recognize that becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization takes
time and is only possible through the sustained efforts of our leaders and
our people. We remain steadfast in our commitment to become a more
inclusive and diverse company.”


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