- Lululemon's founder says the yoga-wear giant is "trying to become like the Gap."
- Chip Wilson told Forbes that he disagreed with the company's "whole diversity and inclusion thing."
Lululemon founder Chip Wilson doesn't like the direction that his company has taken.
Wilson told Forbes in an interview published on Tuesday that he doesn't agree with the "whole diversity and inclusion thing" that the yoga-wear giant has embraced.
"They're trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody. And I think the definition of a brand is that you're not everything to everybody," Wilson said.
"You've got to be clear that you don't want certain customers coming in," he added.
Wilson told the publication earlier that the models in Lululemon's ads looked "unhealthy," "sickly," and "not inspirational" to him.
This is not the first time Wilson has said that Lululemon's products shouldn't be for everyone.
In 2013, Wilson blamed customers' bodies when Lululemon received complaints from people commenting that the yoga pants were too sheer.
"Frankly, some women's bodies just don't actually work for it," Wilson told Bloomberg in November 2013.
"It's really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time, how much they use it," he continued.
Wilson stepped down as Lululemon's chairman a month after making those controversial remarks. He eventually left the company in February 2015 but remains the company's largest individual shareholder.
Lululemon currently lists "inclusion" as one of its core values on its website. It also introduced extended sizing for its clothes in 2020.
Representatives for Wilson and Lululemon did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.