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  1. Lifestyle
  2. Fashion

Lululemon Wants the Men Too

By:
Kerri Anne Renzulli
2 min read
Pedestrians stop to look at a Lululemon Athletica Inc. store in New York. - Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Pedestrians stop to look at a Lululemon Athletica Inc. store in New York. Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lululemon's CEO imagines a world where nearly half the shop's customers are men.

Shaking the chain's notorious women's yoga pants image may be hard domestically, but the company has been expanding overseas and having an easier time convincing foreign markets that it's a clothier for both genders.

CEO Laurent Potdevin predicts that 40% of its current $2 billion annual revenue could eventually come from male shoppers, Bloomberg reports. Actually doing so would be a big feat for the company as its current shoppers skew 80% female.

To win over men, who the athletic and leisure apparel company only seriously began pursuing a couple years ago, the company would need to rid them of preconceived notions about the brand's products as well as convince them to ditch other male-favorite athletic brands like Nike and Under Armour.

The company has banked on its ABC, or anti-ball crushing, pants to help attract men in the past, using suggestive ads as further enticement, as shown in the video here:

Those fruit and nut bits clearly helped, as the Vancouver-based company said ABC pant sales helped fuel growth last quarter. And same-store sales were up for its men's category. The chain is also letting men know that they can wear the same clothes both at work and to work out.

To reach its goal, Lululemon also expects opening more international stores in Seoul, London and Beijing will give it further opportunity to shake its North American women's image.

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