Inside Lewis Hamilton's Lululemon Deal
It's a major coup for the $10 billion Canadian activewear giant, which is looking to diversify its image beyond yoga and sweatpants.
Hi friends! Welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter that tells stories you can't find anywhere else about the intersection of sports, fashion, business, and culture. Powered by OffBall.
It’s been a fun few weeks covering the world of sportswear on SportsVerse. Nike is flexing its muscles, Adidas and On are having fun with their ads, and Mizuno is staging a comeback.
And just as I was about to switch things up and delve into a slightly different topic for today’s newsletter, Lululemon went and signed Lewis Hamilton. I had no choice. My hand was forced.
“With F1 becoming more popular around the world but particularly in the US, I think the fashion world has realised the potential the sport has to reach global audiences,” Hamilton told me when I interviewed him in 2023 for The Business of Fashion.
This, simply put, is a deal that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago—a predominantly womenswear-focused activewear giant signing a Formula 1 driver. But as Lewis told me, times have changed, and F1 is now a battleground for fashion businesses from LVMH to Lululemon seeking to infuse the appeal of their brands with the soaring cultural cachet of high-octane motorsports.
Today’s newsletter will look at what we can expect from the partnership and what it says about Lululemon’s plan to shake its current image. Stick around!
But first, here are three things my friends at OffBall and I are reading to get ahead in sports culture this week.
Ezreen Benissan unpacked Tems’ unlikely role at Formula 1’s big curtain raiser event last week.
Toni Cowan Brown was at F1 75 Live and her analysis is a must-read.
The Kicks You Wear is back and had an interesting view on the weird situation Fear of God Athletics finds itself in, a great All-Star Weekend recap and some NikeSkims analysis.
Lewis and Lulu: What do we know?
Hamilton joined the Canadian activewear brand as a global ambassador this week and will wear the brand’s training and lifestyle gear.
The seven-time Formula 1 champion will work with Lululemon’s product and design teams to co-create collections.
Part of the deal includes scope for Hamilton’s foundation, Mission 44, to work with Lululemon on inclusion initiatives.
Not Just a Sweatpants Brand
Lululemon has offered menswear for over a decade. It’s very good. Their offering ranges from workout gear to sleek casualwear in comfortable, lightweight performance-enhancing fabrics. It makes up a significant segment of overall sales: Lululemon’s men's range represented 23 percent of net revenue in 2023, according to its annual report.
The issue is that very few people know it exists. That included Hamilton himself, who told GQ that he thought Lululemon was a womenswear brand up until recently, referencing the brand’s ubiquitous sweatpants.
Signing Hamilton is the biggest indication yet that Lululemon is determined to shake that reputation and broaden its appeal, both as a brand that caters to men and also offers lifestyle as well as performance wear.
The Canadian activewear giant, which expects to reach $10 billion in sales in its 2024 financial year, has found it near impossible to shake its reputation as a brand that caters exclusively to a certain type of customer, despite now being a global powerhouse that caters to all types of people in several different categories. As OffBall’s newsletter today notes, the brand was referenced in this week’s episode of White Lotus as clothing for “rich bohemians from Malibu”.
It’s not for want of trying. In recent years, Lululemon has sought to drive awareness for its men’s offering by signing male athletes like Jordan Clarkson of the Utah Jazz, the Seattle Seahawks’ DK Metcalf, Connor Bedard of the Chicago Blackhawks (NHL), and very recently poached American tennis star Francis Tiafoe after his Nike deal expired.
But so far, none of these names have been big or influential enough to influence men to go out and shop Lululemon en masse. Typically, brands like Lululemon—even with near-unlimited resources—have found it hard to convince top athletes to sign with them because they offer only offer apparel. It makes it more likely that athletes will sign for brands like Nike, Adidas and Puma that can offer them “head-to-toe” endorsement deals that include performance footwear. It’s why On (originally a running brand) spent years developing tennis footwear with Roger Federer before formally launching the category and going out to sign athletes like Ben Shelton and Iga Świątek.
A Once In a Lifetime Signing
But Lululemon’s latest unexpected signing might just be the athlete it needs to shake its reputation. There are few sportspeople in the world more marketable than Lewis Hamilton right now, a cultural powerhouse and a brand in his own right. With 35 million Instagram followers Instagram compared to Lululemon’s five million, signing Hamilton to star in campaigns, train in the brand’s products and co-create new collections will open up the brand to entire new audiences of men and women who would never previously have given it a second look.
Importantly for Lululemon, unlike all the athletes it has signed previously, Hamilton is a bona fide fashion tastemaker and his CV brings unrivaled credibility in that arena. He single-handedly made Formula 1 a fashion-forward sport, turning his pre-race arrivals over the years into one-man catwalk shows, showcasing looks from high-end luxury brands to emerging designers. He brokered a long-term deal between his previous team Mercedes and Tommy Hilfiger. He has designed capsule collections with Dior. In May, he will co-chair the Met Gala.
When it comes to seeking effective athlete ambassadors, it’s not always just about who is the biggest name on the field, track, or court. (Lionel Messi may be the greatest footballer of all time but he’d make for a terrible luxury brand ambassador, for example). It’s all about seeking athletes who have a genuine star appeal in their sport and other cultural realms, be they fashion, music or art, to allow the brand that partners with them to get valuable exposure in those categories too.
Lewis Hamilton has all the above and more. If Lululemon can’t shake its reputation as a brand purely for the yoga girlies with LH44 on board, then it never will.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Until next time!
DYM
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Fantastic analysis (and thank you for the shoutout)!
This is a good article