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High sales. Higher stock price. Is Lululemon the next megabrand?
It's Sunday afternoon at Lululemon Athletica in Toronto's Eaton Centre mall, and though there's no big sale, customers have swarmed the store. Near the entryway, three girls sip from Starbucks cups and debate the wicking effects of the tops spread before them in multiple hues, while nearby an employee jogs on the spot to demonstrate the anti-chafing properties of a T-shirt to a Lulu first-timer.
The shoppers are mostly women, preteen girls to ladies in their mid-60s, browsing the racks side by side. Many are already squeezed into Lululemon pants and tops, making it difficult to tell who's an employee and who's just a customer updating her wardrobe.
About 10 people wait in line for one of four change rooms tucked away at the back of the store. One willowy employee zips herself into a patterned hoodie from a handy pile and does a nimble spin. "I love the white. What do you think?" she asks no one in particular. Other employees and customers unanimously coo their approval. She removes the garment and passes the item to a customer who rubs her thumbs over the soft fabric and soon heads, beaming, toward the winding checkout line.
From the outside, it's just another store. But inside, Lululemon offers customers something more irresistible than a new look: the potential to transform into the best imaginable version of themselves. Is it possible that $98 stretch pants are the path not only to a cuter bum but also a spiritual awakening? For these shoppers, it is.
Building on his experience in the skate and snowboard business, Chip Wilson founded Lululemon in 1998. Now 54 years old and worth an estimate $1.25 billion, he has quickly transformed Lululemon from a yoga-inspired grassroots company in Vancouver to an international retail phenomenon, and done it by promoting an ethic of self-betterment through exercise, positive thinking and clothes that tread the fine line between wholesome-casual and sexy. The message and the product have spread like rippling water across demographics and regions through clever use of what can only be described as holistic guerrilla marketing. Lululemon sends employees to attend local workout classes and show off the latest collection, the stores sometimes host...