Lululemon founder Chip Wilson blamed the wearing and tearing of the company’s yoga pants on women’s bodies.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV this past week, lululemon founder Chip Wilson made a statement in response to customer complaints about how the store’s famous yoga pants became too sheer and pilled between the legs. In a stroke of shameless victim blaming, Wilson put the responsibility not on his pricey pants but on their wearers. He is quoted as saying, “Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it [his clothing].”
Don’t worry, it gets better.
Wilson goes on to blame the pilling on women’s thighs rubbing together. In short, some women are just too big for lululemon clothing.
Outrage is a healthy reaction. Newspapers across North America haven’t stopped covering the story since it broke on Nov. 5. This critical tide is rising and crashing on the lululemon founder in a cacophony of name-calling and customers threatening to abandon the brand, but let’s face it — America has the attention span of a goldfish. To Wilson’s and the up-and-coming designer athletic wear industry’s delight, the uproar will fade.
Body image and the pressure to conform is a problem. Women shouldn’t have to starve themselves to the point that their inner thigh muscles decompose just so their pants don’t pill. It seems like common sense.
Yet somehow, it’s not. We live in a culture where starvation is sexy, and famine is fashionable. So what to do?
As far as the workout wear goes, maybe a change in philosophy is in order. The purpose of exercise is typically health. No matter what you wear, a crunch is still a crunch, a mile is still a mile and sweat is still sweat. No matter what the exerciser wears, the exercise has the same effect.
Physical exertion isn’t pretty, but for some reason, popular culture tries to make it that way. The emphasis is now on the outfit, not the workout. This, in my mind, is ludicrous, not to mention playing right into the hands of billionaires like Wilson.
Ladies, stop wearing rhinestone spandex. Don’t buy the $80 sports bra. Only when we stop succumbing to the pressure to look perfect at the gym will the impact of our actions be felt. Instead of blogging stream after stream of irate criticism toward corporations like lululemon, take action. It’s okay to look like an idiot — the elliptical wouldn’t have been invented if that were not the case. Grab that high school football T-shirt and your old basketball shorts — and get ugly.
