Lululemon founder, in his recent interview, claimed that Lululemon’s yoga pants are not suitable for “some women’s bodies”. My fellow Sauder classmate, Summer Liu, seems to be upset by Lululemon founder’s statement and she express her thoughts in her blog post, “Lululemon founder says yoga pants don’t work with ‘some women’s bodies”. However, I would like to take a different approach in Lululemon’s product size chart.
As a retail salesperson in women’s clothing and intimate wear for two years, I became aware of women’s high caution in their sizes, whether they believe they are too big or too small. In order to address their concerns, I recommend the most suitable products by explaining why the product has been designed for their body shapes. Although occasionally, customers are disappointed that the products they wanted are not available in their sizes, they often come back satisfied as they have found other products that are truly designed for them. Is size a problem for women? Yes. Are companies creating products to fit women’s needs? Yes.
The company I worked for has attempted to widen certain products’ size availabilities, but the new sizes often end up piling on sale rack as customers simply do not want those products. Chance is, customers that fit the new available sizes have already found their perfect fits in another product design, and they refused to switch to a product that just doesn’t work well with their bodies. If a company’s product sales is lower than its production cost, why would the company continue producing and selling that product? If women with curvier bodies have a significantly smaller demand in Lululemon’s yoga pants, why would Lululemon continue offering the product to that market? Instead of accusing the Lululemon founder for “fat-shaming” women with curvier bodies, it is more reasonable to argue that Lululemon focuses in a different target market of women with a smaller built.
Do not confuse me for justifying what the Lululemon founder has said, because I do believe his wordings have misled some viewers into thinking Lululemon is size-discriminating some women. I am justifying the fact that a company cannot target the world as a single market, and Lululemon is merely targeting its product on the customer segment that Lululemon believes is the most profitable.
“Lululemon founder says yoga pants don’t work with ‘some women’s bodies”