CULTURAL FABRIC
Lululemon’s sire pens book
Is it inevitable that a radical company that takes the world by storm, one such as Lululemon, grows so big it consumes the very culture that made the company a success in the first place?
Chip Wilson isn’t sure.
“It seems to be,” Lululemon’s founder and still biggest shareholder said in his Gastown office that looks out at Burrard Inlet and the North Shore mountains.
“Unless ... if I look at Phil Knight at Nike or Kevin Plank at Under Armour, they came in at a young age, they kept their A- and Bclass shares, so they controlled the board. If you can control the board, you can control the vision and the culture. …
“So they’ve been able to keep core to what they are. I lost it (control of the board). People had told me I didn’t know how to run a big company, I think that was it. … As I look back now, I wouldn’t agree with that.”
This year is the 20th anniversary of Lululemon, now indelibly part of Vancouver’s cultural fabric, if you’ll pardon the pun. It’s hard to imagine the city before the original design/yoga studio turned into the first stand-alone Lululemon store in Kits.
Wilson has written a book, Little Black Stretchy Pants, and a booksigning will be held at TurF, a workout studio, store and restaurant in Kits on West 4th run by a couple of former Lululemon employees, on Thursday from 11:30 to 2:30.
“I really wanted to describe why (the Lululemon phenomenon) could only happen here and not in Portland or New York,” said Wilson, 63, a father of five.
“We had such a great thing at Lululemon, built on a culture that could have only happened in Vancouver. I think even, for example, Hollyhock Farms and Whistler and Wreck Beach and maybe Greenpeace, cannabis, you know, the environment, the mountains, there’s something so incredible here that I think Lululemon could have only happened here.
“And I made a lot of mistakes. I really love learning from mistakes. I thought, why should my mistakes go unnoticed, let’s help other entrepreneurs out, other people who are going to take their companies either to private equity or public and let them know what I learned about it.”
Wilson is pretty good at spotting trends years before they happen.
He opened Westbeach in 1979, selling apparel to surfers, skaters and snowboarders, who at the time were considered rebels, outlaws and outcasts by mainstream weekend warriors who wanted to enjoy their beaches, sidewalks and slopes free of the iconoclasts on boards.
By 1998, Lululemon had introduced the world to “athleisure,” a fashion that made wearing your workout gear while shopping or sipping a caramel macchiato cool.
Wilson stepped down from the board in 2015, but he still owns 13.5 per cent of the company’s stock and is an active shareholder.
He and his wife Shannon have done a lot of philanthropic work, including the Child Run and pouring about $20 million into Ethiopia building schools and keeping girls in school.
As for the future, Wilson sees outfitting bike commuters, disposable formal wear, and bodyhugging Lycra for everyday wear that will last five to 10 years. But his heart is with Lululemon. “Now I’m looking at what my role is at Lululemon,” Wilson said. “Whether it’s to come back on the board or not go back on the board or ... definitely my love is in technical apparel. It’s what I think about all day long and that’s where my mind will probably stay.”