Jennifer Kries -- Lululemon ambassador No More!

[darbyndoug]

http://www.jenniferkries.com/blog/tr...n-open-letter/

[sherry7899]

What a wonderful letter!!

sherry

[mtngoat]

I'm impressed.

Lulu lost me at 'Hello'.

[SharonNYC]

I was glad to see this a few days ago. It's way overdue, but I was glad to see it.

[moonbeam31]

I have a new-found respect for Jennifer for sure! Good for her! I am so glad she sent this letter to such a hate-based, racist, sexist, hipocritical, fraud of a company!Yoga and fitness are not about wearing EXPENSIVE clothes anyway! I am going to re-accuire some of her workouts I don't have just because I love her insight and attitude so very much! Thanks so much for sharing this here!

[unfetteredpast]

I had to travel for business this summer and spent several weeks in a metropolitan area on the east coast. Most mornings, I picked up my morning coffee at a Starbucks. Without fail, the Starbucks was filled with women who looked overbotoxed, had fake nails, carried their bling-y encased iPhones and sported lululemon. It was like a uniform.

Good for Jennifer Kries. It's time we spit the kool-aid out!

[moonbeam31]

Originally Posted by unfetteredpast

I had to travel for business this summer and spent several weeks in a metropolitan area on the east coast. Most mornings, I picked up my morning coffee at a Starbucks. Without fail, the Starbucks was filled with women who looked overbotoxed, had fake nails, carried their bling-y encased iPhones and sported lululemon. It was like a uniform.

Good for Jennifer Kries. It's time we spit the kool-aid out!

Exactly! Such blatent hipocracy!

[momofcha]

Awesome letter.

[aunatural]

Hmmm. I found her letter a little melodramatic myself. In the grand scheme of things, we are talking about clothes that people wear to get sweaty...it is not that serious. Yes, a head honcho made some insensitive comments. But, to me, that says more about the world we live in. There are many people who share the same views. He was just stupid enough to say it in a public forum.

On a humorous note, I was tickled by her declaration that her thighs not only touched, but they RUB! Mine do too. It was a little empowering to read that because I cannot do her Method Pilates DVDs without admiring her physique. She is clearly not one of the bodies Chip Wilson was referring to.

[BunnyHop]

Interesting read.

My thoughts:
1) the covers? All ones in which she's wearing Lululemon clothing, they aren't clickable links to a store. She started the post with talk of the covers, so I think it's a reasonable way to decorate the article. I do think she needs an editor to tighten things up, word-wise.

2) In a light-hearted way, I object to the way this other link mentioned in her letter disparaged the old workout 'Thin Thighs in Thirty Days.' Yeah, okay, the original version of that workout booklet (which I still possess all these years later) did sport some pretty silly workout clothes, from the days when we all wore leotards, tights and leg warmers, and thought it was perfectly reasonable, fashion-wise. In our defense, there wasn't anything else to wear for workouts back then, at least not where I lived. I actually DID that workout years ago, and found it a workable, reasonable, doable system of exercise. (Can't recall the nutrition advice, not sure I paid attention back then, I was, what, in my twenties?) If I recall correctly, basically, it's some exercises for the legs and thighs, and a systematic program to get you up to speed walking three miles a day. Yeah, do that for thirty days, and your thighs (and butt) will shape up. Mine did, and I was in pretty great shape back then.

3) Corporate mission statements? They're a great PR exercise, but anyone who actually believes every bit of their pronouncements is actually being a bit naive. One of the functions of every corporation is to keep the organization alive. They sustain themselves in lots of ways, and good sounding PR that attracts people on many levels is part of the game.

We are, all of us, only human. Sure, it's disappointing to me that this thoughtless fellow who ran his mouth to a reporter has such a cynical attitude, but again, he's only human.

For me, the only way to keep from disappointing myself with the way I live my life, is to constantly work at the skills I know I need to have to live well. Compassion, thoughtfulness, awareness of others all play a role in that, but they're not easy skills that come and stay. If I slack off, bad old habits rear their heads and I find myself living my life in ways that don't serve my own beliefs, needs and prayers.

I haven't learned anything from this situation that I didn't already know in general about the way life works and the way people behave, but I do think it's interesting that so many people are actually shocked.

Giant corporations don't actually have souls. It's up to the people who run them to determine how their influence will manifest in the retail environment, so in some ways, this outcome (boorish admissions leading to PR trouble) really isn't a surprise, even if we're only just now learning how it came about.

This company seems to have been founded by a bunch of cynics, we just didn't know it for sure til now.