Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard all about the Lululemon pants recall. I don’t want to get into a whole discussion or commentary here about this latest Lululemon fiasco — there are other yoga blogs out there that do a better job of keeping up with this stuff — but I just had to share this article about the bizarre way in which some customers have been asked to prove that their pants are defective. Basically, the test amounts to having the customer put the pants on and bend over in front of a Lululemon employee, who will determine if the pants are unacceptably sheer by staring at your butt.
Wow.
Personally, I stopped buying anything from this company a long time ago, probably around the time they went public and turned into a multi-billion-dollar monster. There are plenty of reasons to boycott Lululemon, and there are plenty of folks out there who will tell you why. Now it seems there’s a whole new reason to stay away from Lululemon: the “show me your butt” return policy.
Related articles
- Seeing through Lululemon’s Supply Chain (brettwilburn.wordpress.com)
- Lululemon Says Owners of See-Through Pants Should “Bend Over” (theatlanticwire.com)
- Lululemon’s Too-Thin Yoga Pants Fiasco Could Cost the Company Over $20 Million (theatlanticwire.com)
- Lululemon’s Too-Sheer Yoga Pants Reveal Problems In Company’s Supply Chain (npr.org)
Om Shanti: A Yoga Blog 
They’re an innovative company doing great things. I think you’re wrong on this one. 😉
I wholly agree with you, Eugene. I never jumped on the Lulu bandwagon and have stayed off of it for two reasons:
1) most of their products are made in China or other impoverished nations and they do not list these product details on their website; in fact, my mother once called them to ask where her pants she was ordering online were made and customer service told her that she could wait til she got them to read the tag and then return them if she didn’t want them. The shipping alone was a major environmental cost! Needless to say, my mother now boycotts Lululemon and I’m proud of her for it.
2) they send their ‘ambassadors’ all over the place and it feels very intrusive to me. My mother met one of their ambassadors in her hometown and said the woman would never fess up to the fact that she was marketing the goods in yoga classes and to yoga practitioners even though that’s all she did in the classes and after class.
Just a few more reasons to boycott Lululemon. There are definitely tons of other yoga clothing companies out there who don’t push their goods on yogis and also who practice environmentally-sustainable and socially-responsible manufacturing here in the U.S.
UNFORTUNATELY YOU HAVE BELIEVED A FALSE STORY IN THE MEDIA AND THEN HAVE REWRITTEN/REPORTED A LIE. MY DAUGHTER WORKS AT LULEMON AND NEVER DID THEY ASK CUSTOMERS TO DO THAT. WHAT YOU DIDN’T REPORT WAS THE NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS THAT LIED WHEN THEY BROUGHT IN PANTS THAT WERE NOT PART OF THE RECALL AND LULULEMON HONOURED THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE POLICY BY GIVING NEW PANTS TO MANY CUSTOMERS THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED THEM ISNT IT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO REPORT THE TRUTH WHEN YOU BLOG??
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, INTEGRITY. In fairness, I should clarify that Lululemon does not appear to have an *official* policy requiring customers to bend over, or do anything else of the sort, in order to return their defective clothes. It now seems that there were just a few isolated instances of this happening at a few stores, and that the customer service reps may have misinterpreted a comment by Lululemon’s CEO (she said the only way to really tell if a pair of pants is defective is to have someone bend over, but she did not say that the company would *require* all customers to do this).
I should add that this blog is primarily about my own musings and ramblings about yoga practice and yoga philosophy. It’s only occasionally that I comment on yoga news, and I am certainly not an investigative journalist when it comes to that. I’m just the peanut gallery.
You need to try YOGASMOGA, a new HQ brand now on the market, they are making the difference, check their website, i knew the delivery system that they have is free in USA and Canada 😉
Thanks for posting this! i am a big fan of yoga myself, actually this week i stumbled across a place that has organic / eco friendly pants for yoga (http://www.karmicfit.com/Product/Detail/1675–Jean-Style-Lounge-Fit-Yoga-Pants-in-Twilight-by-Green-Apple) i think blogs and places like this are great for info, Keep up the great work.