Lululemon's Taking on Everyday Wear in Its Hybrid Design Studio-Retail Store

One would be hard-pressed to walk into a New York or Los Angeles boutique fitness studio and not find half the clientele sporting the tiny but instantly recognizable Lululemon logo on their derrières. The brand that began in 1998 in Vancouver, Canada, as part yoga studio, part clothing shop has become one of the biggest names in the athletic apparel world. But it wants to take over more markets. So in 2009, it launched a “lab”—a conceptual design and retail space that bears little resemblance to traditional Lululemon stores—in Vancouver, and added another this year in downtown New York.