Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilson Blames Infamous Lululemon Pilling On Customers Sizing Down For Shapewear
“Women were coming into the store and not wanting Lululemon for athletics. They were coming in looking for it to shape their bodies. But the sewing technique and the fabric wasn't meant for it. So what they were doing is buying two to four sizes smaller than wh…”
Insight
Wilson: Lululemon name chosen because Japanese consumers perceived 'L' as North American
“And it started to occur to me that the five big trading companies in Japan were making North American brand name clothing. In other words, they would come up with their own brand name in order to deliver that to the Japanese customer. But Japanese, those big t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilson claims 2013 sheer pants pilled because women bought sizes too small
“Suddenly, women were coming into the store and not wanting Lululemon for athletics. They were coming in looking For it to shape their bodies. But the sewing technique and the fabric wasn't meant for it. So, what they were doing is buying two to four sizes smal…”
Opinion
Chip Wilson: Advisor push to sell shares diluted founder board power
“The advice I got was, hey, Chip, you should sell more of your shares into the marketplace, because the more shares that are out there, the more the institutional investors will be able to get a good chunk of it and be able to hold it for a long time. But the r…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lululemon's board ousted Wilson as chairman, deeming him a public liability
“The board took me off as chairman because they felt like I wasn't the right front man for the company anymore, and I was a liability to Lou Lemon.”
Opinion
Wilson claims he was likely the only person pursuing non-mountain technical apparel
“I was probably the only person in the world thinking about Technical clothing outside of mountain clothing.”
Opinion
Wilson Claims Nike Did Not Understand Apparel Because Their Shorts Caused Chafing
“Well, Nike was a shoe company, so I know they didn't really understand clothing either, because even in their running shorts, they had these open seams in between their legs, and I'd run five K and I'd totally rash.”
Opinion
Wilson Claims Bankers Push Founders To Sell Shares To Dilute Their Power
“But the reality of it is, is all these were techniques to have kind of an owner-founder dissipate and kind of move into the background and not have the power, so to speak, to control a board.”
Opinion
Wilson: Nike did not understand clothing design because their shorts caused chafing
“While Nike was a shoe company, so I know they didn't really understand clothing either, because even in their running shorts, they had these open seams in between their legs, and I'd run five K
and I'd totally rash.”
Opinion
Chip Wilson: Lululemon went public too quickly under private equity pressure
“The private equity, they're there to make money for their investors, and I had a very long-term vision for Lou Lemon, and they had quite a short-term vision for Lou Lemon. So we went, ah, we ended up going public way too quickly.”
Opinion
Wilson: 2013 Bloomberg remarks were antithesis of what he built at Lululemon
“Well, it was a poor choice of words. It was absolutely devastating to me. It was devastating to my family. I mean, people would come up to my wife and go, how can you be with a man like that that would say that type of thing? But more so it was the antithesis …”
Insight
Wilson follows a 'three times' rule before acting on new trends
“I have always believed in this three times thing, so when I see something three times, and I move really quickly.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lululemon Tripled Competitor Margins By Controlling Both Manufacturing And Retail
“Nobody in the world had, was owning manufacturing right to the retail store. I mean, I was taking triple the profit of most people.”
Disclosure
Wilson sold West Beach based on brand value days before missing payroll
“We quite honestly could not make payroll on Friday, and we sold Wednesday based on brand value only.”
Insight
Wilson operates on a heuristic: observing a trend three times triggers action
“I have always believed in this three times thing, so when I see something three times, and I move really quickly.”
Insight
Wilson: The 1998 rise in female university graduates birthed the athleisure market
“I had to read an article in the paper one day that told me that 60% of the graduates at a university were women in 1998.
And I went, wow, you know,
Something really, really big is going to come out of this, and that is we're going to end up with a market tha…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilson: Lululemon Created First Cotton-Feeling Synthetic Athletic Fabric
“When I started to do my first design meetings with these 10 groups of 10 women, and we had like five or six samples, and they touched the fabric, and they put it on, it was the first time that really a synthetic fabric felt like cotton.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilson: Lululemon captured triple normal retail profits through vertical integration
“I mean, you have to understand that, again, that nobody in the world had, was owning manufacturing right to the retail store. I mean, I was taking triple the profit of most people.”
Assertion Supported
Wilson accidentally sold 48% of Lululemon to private equity, losing board control
“I really only wanted to sell 30% of the stock to the private equity guys, but I ended up selling 48, so I lost control of the board seats, and I didn't know how to negotiate for them.”
Insight
Chip Wilson: Small Fabric-Cutting Efficiencies Save Thousands in Apparel Production
“Once I got into big production and you'd lay 50 to a hundred layers of fabric down, When you can save even five, six, seven inches of fabric it can mean thousands of dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilson: Mall Stand Made $1,000 Daily Selling Shorts Versus $120 at Oil Job
“In a day we'd make like a thousand dollars a day selling the shorts, and I was making like a 120 dollars at the oil company, so it wasn't tough to figure out the math of that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wilson: West Beach wholesale lost $1M annually while retail made $1M
“My wholesale business was losing a million dollars a year, and then I had these two retail stores that were making a million dollars a year.”
Disclosure
Wilson Sold First Company Days Before Missing Payroll Entirely On Brand Value
“We sold to a public company out of Salem, Oregon, Moral Snowboards, and you know, we quite honestly could not make payroll on Friday, and we sold Wednesday based on brand value only.”
Disclosure
Chip Wilson: Walked away with $800,000 post-tax from West Beach sale
“I walked away with a million, and after tax, 800,000, and then you've gotta, you know, I had paid myself probably 30 to 40,000 dollars for 18 years.”
