Loving to love Lululemon – the team behind bringing the store to the UAE

When I moved to Abu Dhabi from Ottawa, Canada, almost eight years ago, one of the first things I did was seek out a yoga class.

On the way to the class, I couldn’t help but feel a little self-satisfied at my cute outfit, a turquoise and black combo courtesy of the Vancouver-based company ­Lululemon Athletica, which was all the rage back home. I imagined I might even be introducing a style trend to a new land.

“No one,” I thought smugly, “is going to be wearing this stuff.” Imagine my surprise as I laid out my mat in the back row, only to be presented with a class full of international women all sporting the same sort of brightly coloured gear I was, marked with that little stylised “A” label that’s become so instantly recognisable.

As Canadian brands have increasingly taken hold the UAE, including Aldo, La Senza and Tim Hortons, the topic of how to get Lululemon to open locally became a popular one among would-be expatriate entrepreneurs from the Great White North.

In the end, it was Majid Al Futtaim Fashion that finally secured the sought-after sportswear brand’s entry to the Middle East.

The company will open the first store in the region – 15 to 20 more are due to follow – as part of Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates Level 2 expansion, next Monday.

Rajiv Suri, Al Futtaim Fashion’s chief executive, laughs when I ask about all the unofficial importing of Lululemon clothes – online purchases, suitcase stashes – that has been clearly going on. “I would say it’s in the region of about a million dirhams a year,” he says.

The lure of the company, which was launched in 1998 by businessman Chip Wilson, who left in 2013, lies in the way it has managed to create a lifestyle as well as the clothes to go with it.

This is most evident in the sought-after bags customers are given to carry their merchandise, which are frequently repurposed as lunch or gym totes – and even sold on eBay. The bags are emblazoned with a series of positive affirmations: “friends are more important than money”; “sing, floss”; “jealousy works the opposite way you want it to”, that kind of thing.

The clothes are gorgeous, bright, flattering, cosy and stylish; you could go out for lunch and run errands in them proudly, and it didn’t take long until women were wearing them with no intention of working out.

They are loved by celebrities and frequently captured in paparazzi shots, with Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Cameron Diaz and Reese Witherspoon counted as fans. In a recent photo, Jennifer Aniston is clad in head-to-toe Lulu on the set of her latest film Mother's Day.

In real ways, the company has actually changed leisure dress in North America; and these days when I visit a mall or grocery store on trips home, it looks as though many of the shoppers are on their way to or from the gym, although they can’t all be.

Of course all that popularity inevitably comes with a backlash. This is the company people love to criticise on a variety of platforms. Among the accusations are that it is “cultish” and that staff are leaned on to attend fitness and yoga classes the company pays for during off-work hours. There is also lots of grumping about the pricing – a pair of workout tights costs the equivalent of Dh369, about standard in the UAE, but high for North America – and for a lack of plus sizes. There was also that see-through tights brouhaha of 2013.

When I mention that the company is frequently targeted, ­Lululemon chief executive Laurent Potdevin says: “I think every brand that leads and has a strong point of view gets very emotionally charged. For the vast majority of the time, I feel that people love to love us.”

In recent years, Lululemon has branched out from the increasingly popular practice of yoga, expanding their vision to include running, spinning, dancing, barre workouts, Crossfit – basically, anything that is a “sweaty pursuit”.

While the local options for fashionable workout clothes, and particularly those devoted to yoga, has steadily grown in recent years, Al Futtaim Fashion has identified plenty of space in the market for a company like Lululemon. Discussions in that direction began in earnest after Suri joined the company in April of 2014; a trip to Vancouver soon followed.

Potdevin knows a little something about introducing big brands to the UAE, after his work in bringing Burton’s snowboards and Tom’s Shoes. He’s also a big fan of Dubai, making the city a stop on his regular trips to surf in the Maldives. The city, Potdevin says, was a very logical place to launch the brand into the region.

“It’s got a really vibrant local population, it’s got a significant expat population, it’s got great tourism,” he said.

Potdevin sees the regional expansion as a great “transiting platform” to build on 300 stores internationally for even more growth: namely India.

“Not for right now,” he says, “but down the road.”

One of the challenges of launching in the UAE, say both Potdevin and Suri, is that Lululemon is a different retail breed. Instead of a large advertising budget, the company focuses on grass roots community engagement to build awareness. And so the store in Dubai has been six months of connection-building in the making.

“Our team really attends as many classes as possible, across many fitness and yoga and centres,” explains Suri. “They try to see the vibrations in the classes and see how the centre works with the community … they try then select inspiring individuals what we call local heroes to help.”

As part of those efforts, five UAE “ambassadors” have been chosen to represent the company for the next two years (see below). There will be community events, classes and workshops, too.

Although no location or date has been given for an Abu Dhabi branch of Lululemon, sources say a good bet is the Al Maryah Central mega-mall, across from The Galleria, in early 2018.

A second store is due to open in City Centre Mirdif by the end of the year and another in Dubai next year.

“This is really the No 1 brand globally,” Suri explained. “So we said ‘let’s try to get go the best for Dubai’.”

amcqueen@thenational.ae