You might have received an email or noticed a new hashtag - #choosefeeling - popping up on your lululemon store newsfeeds. Reader Lulu gives us the scoop (thank you, Lulu!):
The Big thing coming Tuesday September 1st is the launch of the new pant line!!! They have at least 2 new materials coming..NewLu I believe and a new seamless material..Also there will be a super compressive material (medical grade)...It will be a whole new way that they will market all of their pants...How do you want to feel in your pants? If anyone has purchased any pants recently they will have a description on the hang tag about the feeling it is supposed to give you..ie) Hugged feeling , naked feeling! My store is giving out invitations for Tuesday's event that starts when the doors open!!!
In addition to the introducing new fabrics, I've heard that some materials will also be retired. I hope those are Full-on Luxtreme, which is thick, hot, not stretchy enough, and sometimes harsh, and maybe Full-on Luon, which seems very hit or miss. They just need to dig up the formula for luon from 2008 and they'd be in great shape.
I am always excited to try new fabrics but I have to admit some of the new "feeling" descriptions leave me less than thrilled: "hugged" sounds toddler-like and is too vague for me to figure out how compressive it is.
"Naked" is not a feeling I want associated with my pants. Tops that make me feel like I am just wearing a bra are good since that means they're super breathable but "naked" pants? No thanks. Moreover, it's too reminiscent of the dreaded "sheer".
"Held In" is inarticulate and vague. What is wrong with succinct "compressive"?
I didn't have a problem with the more standard Tight, Skinny, Flared, Boyfriend, Loose, and Straight but I guess they weren't special enough.
The Feels terminology along with the useless lookbook-style photography on the website is a turnoff to me. I surveyed a number of high end fitness brands (Koral, Lucas Hugh, and other
Carbon38-type brands) in addition to high end clothing brands, and while most have a Lookbook fashion photography section of their products to give you an idea of styling and the attitude they want to convey, they
ALL offer useful full-on (i.e., perpendicular angle) front, back, side, the entire pant/crop front/back/side view in
one photo, bottoms modeled with a bra so you can see the waistband, and close-ups of each individual piece. I like that there are new fabrics coming but the cosmetic terminology and photography changes seem poorly thought out.