Lululemon’s founder said the athleisure company’s recall of its sheer “Get Low” leggings was a “new low” for the brand.
Chip Wilson, Lululemon’s founder and former CEO, said in a Wednesday LinkedIn post that the pullback of the leggings was a “total operational failure,” and the fault of the company’s board.
“I’ve believed that Lululemon has lost its cool for some time, but it is now evident to me that the Company has completely lost its way as a leader in technical apparel,” Wilson said on LinkedIn.
He slammed the board, calling them inexperienced and shortsighted.
“It is clear that persistent failures like this are born out of this Board’s lack of experience in creative businesses, disinterest in product development and quality, and focus on short-term, self-interested priorities,” Wilson said.
Lululemon said in a statement to Bloomberg on Wednesday that the collection was still available in stores, but its online sales had been temporarily paused because of guest feedback.
The recall took place less than two years after its “Breezethrough” product line was pulled from the market in July 2024, following customer complaints about unflattering seam lines.
Analysts took note of the “Get Low” recall.
“LULU’s withdrawal of a new legging line underscores ongoing execution issues in its core and raises further concerns about the durability of its innovation engine and premium positioning,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a Tuesday note.
Lululemon’s stock price is down about 10% over the past five days and has dropped more than 50% over the past year.
However, Lululemon had another sheer leggings fiasco more than a decade ago, when Wilson was still on the company’s board.
In 2013, Lululemon recalled 17% of all its pants for being too sheer. At that point, the company blamed the manufacturing error on an incomplete testing protocol.
This is not the first time Wilson has publicly criticized the brand since he left the company’s board in 2015.
He slammed the company’s succession plan after CEO Calvin McDonald, compared its trajectory to a “plane crash” and a “sinking ship.”
In December, he launched a proxy fight to shake up the company leadership. As the largest shareholder, he nominated three new board members of his choosing.
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