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LULULEMON’S HIGH-TECH OLYMPIC UNIFORMS.

Walking into Lululemon’s Vancouver headquarters is like walking into an alternate universe ruled by yogis. Employees happily show up to work early for morning hikes, and butt-lifting stretchy pants are the de facto office uniform. Meeting rooms are called Ashtanga and Vinyasa, and people drop lines like “give without expectation” or “set your intention” in regular conversations with zero hint of irony.

The athletic apparel retailer has long held a reputation for putting the “cult” in office culture. But it isn’t all downward dogs and Zen mantras. Their headquarters are also home to one of the most high-tech labs in the business. The research and development inner sanctum, located in the campus basement, is called Whitespace. It’s packed with cutting-edge machines that cost more than the average house.

It’s here Lululemon took on the task of elevating the simple bikini into a blend of fashion and stateof-the-art technology for Canada’s Olympic beach volleyball players. The result is much more than two pieces of nylon cloth to cover the body, and — if all goes right — the innovative uniforms may just give Canada’s athletes a little extra edge to bring home the gold from Rio.

Whitespace counts 40 scientists, engineers, textile specialists and technologists among its staff. Dr. Tom Waller, a mad scientist reminiscent of Q with his five o’clock shadow and smooth British accent, heads up the R&D team. The former head of Speedo’s Aqualab founded Whitespace four years ago, and takes pride in how integrated the lab is with the rest of Lululemon.

“Most R&D labs are off to the side, and there’s this weird thing where the company you’re working for is really excited about what you’re doing, but almost fears the arrival of that thing,” he says. “It can be like throwing bombs over the wall. In my experience, there was always a tension, which made the flow of new ideas and technology harder.”

Whitespace is home to an evergrowing collection of laser cutters, 3D scanners and printers, fusing machines, heat sensing cameras, endless pools, machines that replicate the feel of human skin and — one of Waller’s favourite toys — a climate simulation chamber.

“We can create anything from — 30 degrees to 50 degrees Celsius, and humidity from about 20 per cent to 100 per cent. The lights on the ceiling make it feel like a sunny day, and we can also play around with the gases to create up to 5,000 metres of altitude,” he beams. “We modified an old microlight aircraft engine to create strong winds. We can do pretty much anything … rain and snow are tricky, but anything is possible.” The team was able to exactly recreate Rio’s climate inside the chamber to test the beach volleyball uniforms.

Waller also recently “pimped out” a flashy new 3D scanner that he refers to as his “newest baby.” It can capture an athlete’s full body in one and a half milliseconds, and keep capturing to get a dynamic 3D body scan, which means Whitespace scientists can start to see how the soft tissue of a subject moves to make them feel a certain way when they compete. He only blushes when I ask how much it cost.

You may have heard of Dr. Waller’s work before. His Speedo Aqualab team almost started an international incident when they created a polyurethane swimsuit that caused a succession of world records to fall at the 2008 Olympics. Michael Phelps set seven of his eight records in Beijing wearing the LZR suit. Outcries of technological doping ensued, and the swimsuit was ultimately banned. You could say he’s almost too good at what he does.

The Canadian women’s beach volleyball uniforms shouldn’t spark any scandals, but they are a feat of design. They include a new support system for the chest, innovative body straps that sit perfectly flat against the skin (and maintain their own temperature so that they don’t stretch out) and bottoms with flat waistbands and minimal seaming. Every athlete receives a uniform tailored to their exact measurements and movements.

“The concept behind the design is no distractions,” says Claire Robertson, design director for intimates, bras, swimwear and tops. She worked hand-in-hand with Waller on the uniforms. “When the athletes came in, we set up infrared cameras to track the movements of their breasts as they moved.” The entire design process took about six months.

“The heat and humidity in Rio pose a particular challenge because they make garments expand,” says Robertson. “When you sweat, there’s also more moisture in your clothing which can be an uncomfortable distraction.”

From an aesthetic perspective, each uniform includes a “love note” on the inside of the top that reads, “Be in this moment it’s yours.” The uniforms are a gradient print of black and red to represent Canada and the motion of striking a volleyball. It also elicits a Rio sunset.

“Beach volleyball is a challenging sport to design for because you don’t have a lot of space to work with,” says Waller. The team had to create an entirely new machine in order to be able to manufacture the straps just so.

Canada’s Olympic athletes aren’t the only ones that will benefit from Whitespace’s pursuit of technical perfection. They apply their research to all of Lululemon’s products, including the replica beach volleyball uniforms available to consumers this summer. “We design for athletes, but we also design for every day people,” says Robertson. “We test and fit everything on a range of different bodies.”

While they’re still best known for yoga pants, the team designs athleticwear for almost any sport you can name. Whitespace is poised to take Lululemon from a lifestyle brand to a technology-focused company that competes with the sportswear superpowers.

Chief mastermind Waller has no intention of slowing down any time soon: “Design and creation is like a mountain with no top.”

Every member of the Canadian women’s beach volleyball team receives a uniform tailored to their exact measurements and movements.