Lululemon’s outspoken founder is used to making headlines with his interviews.
Dennis “Chip” Wilson founded the athleisure brand in 1998 and left the company in 2013 after a series of controversial remarks. Since his departure, the 70-year-old billionaire has continued to express his opinions about the brand.
With an 8% stake in the company, Wilson’s wealth remains tied to Lululemon’s performance. With shares underperforming compared to its peers over the last two years and a CEO set to leave in 2026, Lululemon is facing some challenges entering the new year.
On Monday, Wilson launched a proxy battle by nominating three new board members.
“My passion for the Lululemon Athletica muse has never changed, but I know this campaign for change cannot be about me,” Wilson said in a statement. “It is about recommitting Lululemon to genuine creative leadership that will re-establish a brand of enduring strength.”
Lululemon released a statement in response to Wilson’s nominations.
“Mr. Wilson has not been involved with the company for a decade, and since his departure, Lululemon has continued to adapt to the marketplace and lead the industry, building one of the most compelling growth stories in retail,” the company said.
Here are some quotes that show what Wilson has said publicly about Lululemon since leaving the company.
He said Lululemon’s CEO change announcement was a ‘failure’
Lululemon said in December that CEO Calvin McDonald would leave his role at the end of January 2026 and named CFO Meghan Frank and CCO André Maestrini as interim co-CEOs while the company searches for a replacement.
Wilson was quick to criticize the change.
“As one of the largest active shareholders of Lululemon, I am deeply concerned about what appears to be a tremendous failure by the board to competently plan for the future and manage an effective succession process,” Wilson said in a statement the day after the company’s announcement.
In his statement announcing his board nominations on December 29, Wilson said that “shareholders have no faith” in the current board’s ability to select a new CEO.
He blamed Lululemon’s leadership for its ‘loss of cool’
In October, Wilson penned an ad in The Wall Street Journal to criticize the athleisure brand’s performance.
In the ad, he described Lululemon’s “loss of cool,” blaming “financed focused CEOs” who, he said, don’t know how to attract or motivate talent or understand great products.
He also compared Lululemon’s “decline” to a “plane crash” and a “sinking ship.”
“Lululemon forgot its muse: the woman who inspires culture, not just follows it,” he wrote.
Wilson implored the brand to “stop chasing Wall Street at the expense of customers.”
He said criticized the brand for trying to be ‘everything to everybody’
In a Forbes interview published in January 2024, Wilson slammed the company’s ads for featuring models that he described as “sickly,” “unhealthy,” and “not inspirational.”
“They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody,” he said. “And I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody.”
He also told the publication he didn’t agree with Lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing.”
Wilson previously sparked controversy when he was chairman of Lululemon for other remarks that suggested Lululemon was not for everyone.
In 2013, in response to criticism about Lululemon’s leggings being too sheer, he told Bloomberg TV, “Frankly, some women’s bodies just don’t actually work for it … It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time, how much they use it.”
He stepped down as chairman of the company shortly after. He’d resigned as CEO in 2007.
“Chip Wilson does not speak for Lululemon, and his comments do not reflect our company views or beliefs,” Lululemon said in a public statement around the time.
He said Lululemon owes its success to a single demographic
Wilson has been adamant that Lululemon should focus on its core demographic.
“Our success was exactly that 32-year-old single professional woman — highly disposable income, very fashionable, athletic,” Wilson told Tony Robbins in an interview published in 2023.
Wilson has praised Lululemon’s economic strategy
In the 2023 interview with Robbins, Wilson gave Lululemon props for having an “unbeatable” economic engine.
“Nobody’s been able to replicate the muscle of this vertical retailing model, which costs so much money to get into,” he said.
The vertical retailing model, adopted by other athletic brands like On Running, eliminates third-party retailers like Foot Locker or Macy’s from the business plan.
Wilson’s latest proxy battle isn’t his first run-in with the board
Wilson spoke in the 2023 interview with Robbins about the tension he had with board members before stepping down as chairman in 2013. He described them as “Wall Street people” who lacked creativity.
“Somebody in here has gotta stand for the employees. Somebody has gotta stand for the quality of the product. Nobody in here cares about it,” Wilson said he told the board.
He said those remarks led to his departure.
“‘I think you should all fire yourselves,'” he said. “And they fired me.”
It is common for public companies to elect new board members regularly, and many of Lululemon’s board of directors have changed since Wilson’s remarks.
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