Lululemon has released an advertisement called “Be Spring” featuring Academy Award-winning Chinese actress, Michelle Yeoh. The company’s cofounder, Chip Wilson, has a history of problematic opinions on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which some argue come in direct conflict with lululemon’s Lunar New Year advertisement. Head below for more details.
We are less than a month into 2024, and lululemon is once again facing backlash circling the diversity, equity, and inclusion umbrella in which they can never quite keep themselves protected from the rain.
In a Lunar New Year advertisement titled “Be Spring” released a few days ago, the incomparable Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh (of Everything Everywhere All at Once and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame) stars in a beautiful, nearly two-minute lululemon advertisement featuring the theatrical dancers of “Wing Chun.”
The caption underneath the ad notes that lululemon that the ad is a welcome to The Year of the Dragon:
We partnered with Michelle Yeoh and the theatrical dancers of “Wing Chun” to celebrate of the arrival of spring: a season signifying rebirth and new beginnings. Through a poetic enactment of the meeting of mind and body, the film explores the concept of wellbeing, inviting us to find eternal spring in our everyday lives.
I love that lululemon called a two-minute advertisement a “film” (it isn’t) but this is perhaps beside the point, because it is in fact beautiful to watch: Michelle Yeoh, dancers, the wilderness, her native language. However, commenters were quick to point out what they view as a discrepancy between lululemon hiring Michelle Yeoh and the company’s history of exclusion:
“Everyone remember how they came up with the name “Lululemon”? It was so the founders could make fun of Asian accents of L and R.”
“Wait…is this an actual joke considering the message from your founder Lululemon????”
What these YouTube commenters are referring to is lululemon’s cofounder, Chip Wilson, who has admitted that he chose the name “lululemon” because he thinks Japanese people can’t pronounce the “L” in the name and because “it’s funny to watch them try and say it.”
Most recently in an interview with Forbes, Wilson expressed his distaste for lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing,” noting that the models chosen for advertisements look “unhealthy,” “sickly,” and “not inspirational.”
For her part, Michelle Yeoh is excited about her role in the advertisement, despite the comments from people who believe lululemon is a problematic (to say the least) company, with one of its largest shareholders, Chip Wilson, continuing to profit off of the brand.
More on lululemon:
- Work up a sweat with Peloton x lululemon’s “Move For You Event”
- Lululemon hires Gap’s Jonathan Cheung as new global creative director
- Chip Wilson, lululemon founder, says company doesn’t want “certain customers coming in”
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