Yoga Army
After reading Yoga Dork last week, I have to admit that my love affair with LuluLemon must come to an end. It's embarassing. The clothing is so well made, lasts forever, fits well, breathes well, but it's just too trendy. When LLLMN set up shop in NY in 2006 (I wrote about it for TimeOutNY), I knew my time was running out. True to form, they quickly swept the city. As a Canuck, I'd already begun wearing their clothes in 2002, when no one here cared. (Vancouverites cared though; my friends called it attire for teeny-boppers. They couldn't believe I wore it; they wouldn't go near it themselves.) But now it's like I'm a freaking ad. It's just not cool. (And you can't black out that ubiquitous shiny silver logo, I've tried.)
Now, just to cement my fears, Forbes announces that Christine Day, former head of Starbucks' Asia Pacific Group, is heading up LuluLemon as CEO, making the standardized latte culture--standardized yoga culture link ultra clear. Uh oh.Forbes says, "Lululemon fits Day’s easygoing personality and seriousness of purpose. And, like the one-time coffee juggernaut, the yoga-centric clothing company focuses on cult-like customer loyalty; thorough, mandatory staff training on new products and customer service; and innovative marketing. "Sigh. Innovative, yes, but just a bit too clubby.Luckily at Easter brunch today I heard about Yoga Army, an LA-based yoga wear company. Only problem is, none of their dresses look like anything I could wear to class. Yoga Army is a "yoga look" for out on the town. "Yoga street," as one of my brunch companions noted. (But how "street" is a red-silk, one-shoulder dress at $594? Or a fringed-leather vest for $200?)Yoga Army was smart: it dispensed with the yoga.Not so for the LA labels Beyond Yoga (at the mind-bending URL, www.iambeyond.com), OmGirl (includes a T with a charity bent), all mentioned in Los Angeles Magazine, March 2009, where lifestyle and yoga creepily creep together.And once-small companies such as Blue Canoe and Hyde (Hyde has product endorsement from Deepak Chopra front and center on their home page) seem to aspire to similar ends as the now gigantic LLLMN---so does that make buying them just the same sin under a different label?(And speaking of labels, the price-tags on all of these organic, single-source, almost edible threads are s-t-e-e-p---no cheaper that the Big Lemon's.) So, what's a non-label-loving girl to do? Take refuge in American Apparel and call that anonymity? Wear Nike like a rebel?