LOS ANGELES — A healthy dose of Zen just arrived in Beverly Hills. Canadian yogawear company Lululemon Athletica launched a 4,400-square-foot store here last Thursday as part of a retail strategy that will add 200 U.S. stores and 40 to 45 units in Canada to its business over the next five years.
Based in Vancouver, Lululemon Athletica currently operates 38 stores in Canada, two in Japan, one in Melbourne and 10 locations in the U.S., eight of which are on the West Coast — with one store in Boston and one in Chicago.
Robert Meers, chief executive officer of the privately owned company, said in the next year, Lululemon Athletica will bow six locations in Canada and 30 in the U.S. “on both coasts…then in Chicago and Texas,” he said.
The Beverly Hills unit, located on high-traffic Beverly Boulevard, is the third retail location to open in Southern California, but is almost double the size of the company’s existing stores. Lululemon has boutiques in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara.
Despite its size, Meers said the new store is not a flagship. “We think that Beverly Hills is a flagship location, but I would say the store is very typical of the stores we’re building during our expansion,” he said. “Beverly Hills has a marquee address and reputation. The Southern California woman is very committed to fitness and exercise and stress reduction…and the tourist trade that walks Beverly Drive is looking for similar innovative products.”
Solid-colored yoga pants in Lululemon’s patented tech fabric, Luon (86 percent nylon, 14 percent Lycra), retail for around $84 and feature a variety of waistbands and lengths. Trend-right sleeveless wrap tops in two-color combinations, such as purple and red, retail for $44. Pink logo gym bags sell for $64. The company continually experiments with new textiles. Current fabrics incorporate organic ingredients such as seaweed and vitamin B.
Lululemon’s healthy-living manifesto translates into its stores, which become more eco-friendly with each new unit. “It’s something we’re really focused on as a company,” said community relations manager Sara Gardiner.
The Beverly Hills store features energy-efficient lighting, eco-friendly paint, reclaimed wood flooring and low-flow water fixtures. “We hire local companies to try and support the local economy, but also from a materials [collecting] perspective, we try to keep within a local radius,” said Gardiner.
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The store has the feel of a new-generation yoga studio, with its uncluttered, loft-like aesthetics. A brick wall frames one side of the space, while the remaining three walls are painted a pale lemon yellow. The company uses local fitness experts as models for its in-store advertising, and pictures of a local Equinox gym trainer and the owner of a nearby yoga studio grace the walls of the Beverly Drive store.
Meers said the company looks for three elements when scouting retail locations: heavy foot traffic, close proximity to gyms and yoga studios and whether spaces are in lifestyle centers — open-air mall environments, because, said Meers, “Our marketing is based on being involved in the community, as opposed to using TV and print advertising. Beverly Drive is not a lifestyle center, but that’s usually where we want to be.”
The company also operates a small wholesale business, “still in its infancy,” said Meers, which sells to spas, resorts, yoga studios and health clubs. Meers declined to discuss sales figures for the company.
Entrepreneur Chip Wilson founded Lululemon Athletica in 1998, soon after selling his former company, Westbeach Sports (which has been credited with bringing surf, skate and snowboard apparel to Canada) to Morrow Snowboards in Salem, Ore.
Meers, a former ceo for Reebok in the mid-Nineties, started at Lululemon in December 2005, when the company brought on two private investors, Advent International and Highland Corp. The two entities own 48 percent of the business, while Wilson — now chairman — maintains a controlling 52 percent.