Lululemon founder’s next big move
Barbara Yaffe: Chip Wilson will join his wife and son in the ‘athleisure market’
The success of yogawear giant Lululemon has spawned a new made-in-Vancouver business venture, one its owners hope will also become a retail phenom.
Kit and Ace was launched last summer by the wife and eldest son of Lululemon founder Chip Wilson. But news broke on Monday that the billionaire biz whiz is resigning from Lululemon’s board and will now join his family at Kit and Ace.
Chip Wilson, 58, said in a news release that he has accomplished what he wanted to at Lululemon, engineering the addition of two new board members and securing a commitment that a corporate governance review of the company will be undertaken.
“I will now have more opportunity to work with my wife and son as they grow their new business. I am so excited ... because it is where street clothing is going.”
Wife Shannon Wilson, in a recent interview at the store’s Gastown location, described Kit and Ace as “a natural evolution, and (it is) because of Lululemon’s success that I am able to do this.”
Shannon, who is working with J.J., Chip Wilson’s 26-year-old son from a previous marriage, says the store aims to fill a retail gap — the “athleisure market.”
It offers sporty and casual clothing in luxe fabrics, like cashmere and, in coming months, silk. The pre-shrunk fabrics will offer luxury, quality, maximum comfort and wash and wear care.
Wilson’s wife herself was former lead designer at Lululemon — initially hired by Chip Wilson, before they married.
She has lately trademarked a new, hardier type of cashmere, called Qemir, working with a mill near Milan. It is less delicate than most high-end fabrics, eliminating the need for trips to the dry cleaner.
Already, she and J.J. have opened seven stores in North America, which they refer to as “studios,” staffed by 240 employees.
The Water Street store in Vancouver, with its calming wood and white interior, offers stylish T-shirts, sweatshirts, shirts and trousers in a few basic colours, priced from $68 to about $200. Sewing machines at the front are used by designers hired locally who sew new styles right in front of customers.
The company, which will remain private, plans to open 60 additional “studios” by the end of 2016, including in the U.K., Japan and Australia.
Vancouver will be home base for the venture and eventually feature three retail studios. Corporate offices will be located in Toronto, New York and San Francisco.
The business, described on the website as “a Wilson family company,” is expected to start turning a profit in three to five years.
Shannon acknowledges expansion is happening faster than most private retail outlets — normally less endowed with available capital — could undertake. She demurred from revealing how much cash has been put into the business.
“I’m a lucky lady,” the Sault St. Marie, Ont., native says. “I’ve always been a really hard worker. I come from a family that had very little.”
The company pays great attention to its online presence with a view to making ordering pain free, something relatively few Canadian retailers have turned their attention to.
Shipping is complimentary, with a postage-paid envelope accompanying each order to enable easy returns.
Like Lululemon, Kit and Ace gives prominence to developing a distinctive brand. Gastown was chosen for Vancouver’s first studio because of its youthful, high-tech vibe.
“Kit and Ace” are depicted online as two people who might typically wear the clothing.
They act as “aspirational muses” to achieve a more focused brand, explains Shannon Wilson, who has a degree in fashion design.
Each studio features a wall exhibiting work of local artists, reinforcing a theme of creativity.
The 41-year-old mother of three boys says her husband in the past has given her advice rather than input on her retail project.
“Advice is different from input. I don’t have to take it.”
Of course, with greater involvement by Chip Wilson, that may now change.
“I will now have more opportunity to work with my wife and son as they grow their new business. I am so excited... because it is where street clothing is going. CHIP WILSON LULULEMON FOUNDER