The thief entered the Lululemon store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan just after 7 p.m. on a chilly Friday in February. The person reached into a display case, grabbed $2,916 worth of clothes, and fled “on foot to parts unknown,” according to the police.
Less than 48 hours later, two people entered the same store and repeated the crime: Reach into a display case, take some clothes, run. This time, the stolen merchandise was valued at $11,000. The incidents, the police said, were part of a targeted spree of eight grand larcenies in recent weeks at high-end, yoga-inspired clothing stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The Lululemon store at Fifth Avenue and West 17th Street was targeted four times in 15 days. The smallest theft, at an Alo store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, netted three unidentified thieves just $1,334 worth of merchandise. Four blocks away, another Lululemon store on North Sixth Street was hit twice, most recently on March 3.
For the thieves, that was the most successful heist yet. Three unidentified people entered the store shortly before 4 p.m., the police said. They made off with $21,000 in expensive, soft, stretchy clothes.
On Wednesday, the police released grainy surveillance photos of three people who may have been involved in the theft at the Alo store, and asked anyone with information to get in touch. No one was injured in the incidents, and the police have made no arrests, a spokesman said.
Customers on Wednesday expressed sympathy for the employees who were present during the thefts. “Working there, it must be scary,” said Kaylie Haueisen, 26, a fashion designer and former retail worker who was shopping at the Lululemon store in Williamsburg. In her experience, she said, workers were told not to chase after shoplifters, for their own safety.
“I guess they try to resell it?” Ms. Haueisen’s mother, Taylor Haueisen, 56, said of the thieves.
“I mean, what else would you do?” the younger Ms. Haueisen said.
Other shoppers said they could understand the thieves’ motivation. A pair of leopard print “Fast and Free High-Rise” five-pocket leggings at Lululemon costs $128; a “Go Further Bra with Support Code Technology” in “True Navy” retails for $98.
“People want it and they can’t afford it, so they just take it,” said Trina White, 43, a home health aide from Crown Heights who was buying a gift for her daughter’s birthday. “I get it.”
Read Hayes, a criminologist at the University of Florida and director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, said workout clothes from status-symbol brands were the latest “hot products” targeted by retail thieves in New York and around the country.
When he started his career as a research scientist in the late 1990s, Mr. Hayes said, the hot products of the moment were Disney Home Video VHS tapes. In the decades since, Crest Whitestrips, Gillette Fusion razor blades and infant formula of all flavors have remained popular targets for the nation’s thieves.
Desirable products share a few common attributes, Mr. Hayes said. They are widely available, easy to remove, easy to conceal and easy to sell for cash.
Clothes by Lululemon and Alo tick all the boxes, Mr. Hayes said. The Loss Prevention Research Council does not have any recent data on the current popularity of such brands amid the larger trend of robberies targeting “logo apparel,” Mr. Hayes said, other than to suggest that “retail theft is up a little” in 2026 compared with last year. Accurate numbers are hard to find, he said, in part because retailers often choose not to report thefts to the police.
Athleisure stores across the United States have been the site of sometimes dramatic thefts in recent weeks, according to local reports.
In January, two masked burglars smashed the front door of a Lululemon store in Ardmore, Penn., with a sledgehammer, and escaped with armloads of men’s clothing in a U-Haul truck, the local ABC affiliate reported. In California last week, surveillance cameras recorded a woman stuffing leggings into a large bag and running away from a Lululemon at the Irvine Spectrum Center mall, according to local TV news. She was arrested soon after, as she waited for a ride-share car to pick her up.
In Williamsburg on Wednesday, the Lululemon store and the police appeared to be doing what they could. Inside the store, security cameras were aimed toward the door, and some of the clothing had theft-deterrent tags attached. Just before 5 p.m., a police officer drove to the store on North Sixth Street, parked and stood by her vehicle.
The officer declined to be named, citing department policy, but offered that officers from her precinct were often sent to the store.
Twenty minutes later she got back into the car and drove away.
Olivia Bensimon contributed reporting.
Christopher Maag is a reporter covering the New York City region for The Times.
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