National Post (National Edition)
Plan B: ‘In case of sheerness’
DEAR DIARY: LULULEMON CEO CHRISTINE DAY
MONDAY
It’s happened: We’ve broken the sheer threshold. Breathing deeply, I reached under my desk and sounded the alarm before reaching into my drawer for an organic hemp envelope labelled Plan B. Inside, an eight-word instruction sheet met my eyes: “In case of sheerness: Destroy pants, eliminate culprit.” I quickly dialed up our worldwide network of stores managers on a video monitor. “When people think Lululemon, they think fitness, exercise and health — certainly not skimpy, revealing pants,” I announced. “We’ve got a reputation to save; find those pants and recycle them without mercy!” As I ran to the roof to board a helicopter to our textiles facility in Vietnam, I could already see tense crowds starting to form at ground level. News of the coming shortage had spread quickly. We had emergency reserves of bottoms, to be sure, but I prayed it would be enough to fend them off.
TUESDAY
We landed a kilometre from the site and then hacked our way to the front gates through thick jungle. It’s the most fair-trade, low-footprint factory in Southeast Asia, but Steven Kurtz, the facility’s manager, has not quite been the same since we trans- ferred him here in 2004. He greeted me with a bizarre diatribe on their egalitarian hiring practices. “You have to have workers who are moral ... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to create fabric without feeling, without passion ... without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.” “Steven,” I interrupted. “The fabric … it’s too sheer.” He fixed me with a steady, unsettling gaze. “There is nothing wrong with the fabric, Christine.”
WEDNESDAY
Steven was right. The fabric was perfect. For 32 straight hours, myself and 40 of my most trusted employees sequestered ourselves at headquarters and tried on box after box of the defective pants. We ran through every yoga pose we could think of: cobras, planks, forward folds, downward dog — but damn it, not a speck of sheerness. After two aides collapsed from exhaustion, I buzzed my secretary to bring in another tray of bananas and CLIF bars. She came in wearing a pair of our black Astro Pants and, as I looked closer, I realized they left nothing to the imagination: They were as sheer as a mountain stream. “Carol,” I demanded. “What size do you wear?” “Eight, normally,” she said. “But the great thing about Lululemon pants is that I fit into a two.” Could it be? Have I bet the company on a planet of Carols jamming themselves into undersized pants?
THURSDAY
As our global pants supplies dwindle, I have received word that male enrolment at yoga studios across North America has plummeted almost overnight. Desperate former customers, meanwhile, have taken to wearing body paint. How could I have been so blind? The motivational posters, the matcha tea, the mandatory in-store “learning libraries” — it’s all been a farce. We sell glorified, overpriced butt pants to people who haven’t seen a yoga mat in their lives. They don’t care about the seaweed content of fabric; they just want a ready-made buttock mould. By nightfall, my positive energy had become so clouded by disillusionment that I held a floor bow pose until my spine burned.
FRIDAY
As a great philosopher once said, “the truth is not for all men, but only those who seek it.” I was wrong to fear sheerness — to see it as my enemy — when all along it was trying to send me a message. It’s why I’m proud to introduce our lightest, most breathable pants yet: Lighter Than Air. To outside observers, it is merely a waistband made from high-performance wicking material and emblazoned with a Lululemon logo. But the rest of the garment is fashioned from a patented blend of invisible, weightless fibers. Zero carbon footprint and maximum comfort. Our first shipment sold out within hours. As the first buyers strode outside wearing the new vestments, I heard a child scream. “They’re not wearing any pants!” Silly youngster: He doesn’t believe.