"I feel like I’ve been sick of Lululemon since it opened"

TRUE:

"Whatever the truth of the matter, the episode is a sign of a company run by fast-moving free-and-fuzzy-thinkers, who grant huge autonomy to their store managers while passing down bizarre corporate materials like the Lululemon Athletica Success Chakra, an eight-point wheel of instruction enumerating the routes to “wealth,” “long-term human relationships,” and a “superior immune system.” The first piece of advice is, “Determine your aptitudes and turn them into money.” There are also helpful nuggets about avoiding soft drinks, forgiving your parents, and having a cigarette now and then. Overall, it doesn’t really make any sense, but it’s the essence of Lulu: good karma and great cash flow."

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New York Magazine: How Yoga Brand Lululemon Turned Fitness Into a Spectator Sport

From Mel- having grown up in the city that spawned this absurd yoga leviathan I feel like I’ve been sick of Lululemon since it opened. Probably because, like your more pretentious forms of vegetarian/veganism, I hate any “lifestyle” that presumes a spiritual or ethical superiority while really being all about privilege.

The comparison hinted at between Starbucks and Lululemon is perfect, except that Starbucks really opened up the whole arena of designer coffee and made way for all those local sceney coffee shops populated by tattooed hipsters who sneer at the megabrand that granted them the audacity to charge me $4.00 for a coffee in the first place. Lululemon, on the other hand, seems to still be a singlular kind of creature with no emergent simulacra on the horizon yet, like a corporate platypus. I shudder to think what might evolve from the concept of designer fitness + spirituality (designer spirituality + fitness? Choose your own ordering)

from your beauty must be rubbing off (a.k.a. the ever-wonderful Michelle)