Lululemon’s secret power: even mum can’t make it uncool
The maker of workout gear built a multigenerational following. Can it last?
Most girls won’t wear the same clothes as their mums, but they make an exception for Lululemon.
The athletic-apparel maker has a cross-generational customer base that has eluded many other clothing brands. Its high prices and scant discounting have elevated its leggings, sweatshirts and tank tops to status symbols normally reserved for luxury goods, and made them a coveted uniform for children and moms alike.
Lululemon Athletica’s sales and stock price have surged even as inflation-weary shoppers have cut back on purchases of clothing and other products in favour of travel and experiences. Much of its continued success will hinge on its ability to sustain the interest of young shoppers without turning off older ones, and fend off new entrants like Alo Yoga and Vuori.
“All my friends at school wear Lululemon,” said Hannah McMullan, a seventh-grader who lives in Chappaqua, N.Y. “There’s no reason to think it’s not cool because older people wear it.” Teens can be a fickle bunch. Brands that were once mainstays with this group like Adidas and Under Armour have lost sway with younger shoppers, according to biannual surveys conducted by investment bank Piper Sandler.
Parents say they are willing to spend upward of $100 for Lululemon leggings and sweatshirts because the clothes last. They are also happy to have something in common with their kids. “There are so few things in those tween years that you can do together,” said Jennifer Weitzman, a 53-year-old copywriter and Hannah’s mom.
While certain luxury brands hold the same cross-generational pull, most 12-year-olds aren’t carrying $2,000 Louis Vuitton totes to school. Lululemon is more within reach, but still signals membership in an exclusive club.
“It’s a status symbol,” said Sierra Marelia, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, who started wearing Lululemon in middle school.
Founded in 1998 by Canadian businessman Chip Wilson, Lululemon tapped into communities by making local fitness instructors its brand ambassadors and by hosting events like 10k runs. Many of the women who grew up wearing Lululemon to the gym — and as athleisure took hold, to the market, the mall and pretty much everywhere else — now have children of their own.
Some brands have turned off older customers in pursuit of younger ones. When Tiffany & Co. ran an ad campaign in 2021 with the tagline “Not Your Mother’s Tiffany,” a backlash ensued on social media with some longtime customers saying they felt insulted. JCPenney in 2018 refocused on middle-aged moms after attempts to court millennials fizzled.
Lululemon so far has managed to straddle the generational divide. It courts younger shoppers on TikTok and with stores on university campuses. It also pays homage to older customers with clothing lines like one last year called the “Throwback Collection,” which brought back some of its best-selling products from the past, including wide-leg yoga pants, cropped leggings and fitted jackets that were introduced in 2010.
Its influencers range from 17-year-old Olympic swimmer Summer McIntosh to 93-year-old Grandma Droniak, who recently aired a TikTok video to her 11.8 million followers showing them how to wear Lululemon attire as they head back to school. “Go straight from class to cheering-on your football crush. You will get his attention in this colour,” she said as she modelled a lime-green puffer jacket.
Lululemon Chief Executive Calvin McDonald said the brand’s appeal stems from its strategy of putting function before fashion.
“Each age group is okay with the other wearing it because you’re solving something that’s truly needed versus just being a fashion piece that you may or may not want to see another member of the family in,” he said.
The brand creates different silhouettes of the same product for various age groups.
Cathy Leonhardt, a 55-year-old investment banker, wears the 4-inch Hotty Hot shorts, while her daughters, Jemma, age 13, and Carson, 17, favour the 2.5-inch version. “I don’t feel like I’m trying to be too young,” which is the case with other brands that straddle the mother-daughter divide, said Leonhardt, who lives in New York City.
McDonald said Lululemon has grown its market share in recent years with age groups from Generation Z to baby boomers.
Lululemon was the second-favourite athletic apparel brand behind Nike among teens, and the third-favourite apparel brand overall behind Nike and American Eagle Outfitters, according to the latest Piper Sandler survey.
Lululemon tried to target even younger shoppers with Ivivva, a line launched in 2009 aimed at ages 6 to 12. But kids that age didn’t want Ivivva — they wanted Lululemon, said Abbie Zvejnieks, a Piper Sandler senior research analyst. The line was discontinued in 2020. Lululemon offers free hemming, which helps adult-size clothing fit smaller shoppers.
Lookalikes have proliferated. Search “Lululemon dupe” on Amazon and you get more than 4,000 results for items that look similar to Lululemon gear, but cost less. In May, Lululemon held a “Dupe Swap” in Los Angeles, where people traded in leggings they bought elsewhere for the company’s Align leggings.
Lululemon had a quality problem in 2013 that made a certain version of its leggings too sheer when wearers bent over. It no longer carries that style.
In the ensuing years, Lululemon’s founder left the company, and it cycled through three CEOs before naming McDonald, a former Sephora president, as its chief in 2018. Under McDonald, Lululemon bought at-home fitness start-up Mirror, launched shoes and introduced a resale program for gently worn gear. It also has expanded into men’s apparel, which now accounts for about a quarter of its sales. The company has more than 670 stores globally.
Last year, Lululemon wrote down the value of Mirror by more than $440 million, close to its $500 million purchase price. Analysts say it’s too soon to judge the success of its shoes and resale program. McDonald has said that early responses to the shoes have exceeded expectations and that he’s pleased so far with the results from the resale plan.
Lululemon’s sales have more than doubled to $8.11 billion at the end of its most recent fiscal year, compared with 2019. Sales in its most recent quarter jumped 18%, compared with the same period a year ago.
Its shares are up nearly 150% over the past five years, outperforming a roughly 47% gain in the S & P 500 Index.
For 12-year-old Abby Fernstrom, all that matters is that her friends at school wear Lululemon.
When her mum, Cheryl Fernstrom, came home with three bags of matching outfits for the two of them, Abby was ecstatic. “There are some clothes my mom wears that I don’t want to wear,” Abby said. “But with Lululemon, I was like, ‘Great!’”
