Friday, March 15, 2013

It's Fashion Friday!:Lululemon-Taking Advantage of Sweaty Girls Everywhere


           Even when you’re doing something good for yourself, the system finds a way to prey on you. You’ve finally taken some control. You’ve decided you don’t want to take up two seats on the airplane anymore. You’ve decided you don’t want to be that bony, scrawny weak girl who can’t pick up straw wrappers without throwing her back out. You’ve decided that rather than just drinking your problems away with red wine, it might also be beneficial to add some cardiovascular exercise in to really make a dent in that work-related anger (but hopefully before you have the red wine, because if you run while inebriated, there are sure to be some tipsy treadmill injuries). You’ve done it. You are getting healthy and you think you have a better handle on your life. Until that moment – the moment when you walk into and discover Lululemon – the healthy woman’s crack habit.
Look how HAPPY she is in that $68 running shirt!
            Exercise-wear is kind of a funny branch of “fashion.” I am really of the mindset that I don’t care what I look like when I am exercising. Quite honestly, if I am really working hard, I am going to be sweating bullets, and no matter what you wear, you can’t make that attractive. I want to be comfortable when I work out. I always got a big kick out of the sorority girls at the fancy gym at my alma mater. They would have on matching exercise outfits and lots of makeup. They’d come up to the floor with the indoor track and the weight machines and the treadmills. And then, they would walk around. Yes, that’s it. They would just walk around. After a rigorous meander around and checking of themselves out in the mirrors they would stop at the Smoothie King stand on the way out of the gym for a “healthy” fruit smoothie for dinner (these things were really about 1500 calories of pure sugar… but very tasty).
             Part of being comfortable is not being disgusted by your own odor. When you’re trying to exercise and you think the person next to you smells like rotten cheese stepped on by unwashed feet and you hastily either move to another machine or try to run away from them, but then discover that the smell follows you and you just can’t get away from it, it’s a pretty distressing experience. This can happen if you work out in the same old raggedy t-shirts over and over. They only get clean so many times before they stop getting clean. They make these cool fabrics now that are bacteria and smell resistant. 
            I used to buy all of my exercise clothing at TJMaxx. It’s SO much cheaper there. And to be honest, I buy almost everything at TJMaxx. I even buy coffee at TJMaxx. I discovered some packaged German coffee from my favorite Munich food house one day and nearly flew through the roof with excitement. I was going to just get one or two boxes, as any normal person would. And then when I used it I would come back and get more. The crazy in me, however, heard some little German ladies over by the picture frames, and I started to lose it and thought “What if those little German ladies discover that there’s Dallmayr coffee on those shelves? What if they buy the rest of the Dallmayr coffee? I can’t let that happen.” I fast-walked over to the food aisle and stacked my arms full with 7 boxes of coffee and made a break for the cash register. Needless to say, I can find anything I want at this establishment. EXCEPT long torso-ed workout shirts. Do you know what irritates the bejesus out of me? Bare midriffs. And, having to pull my shirt down to cover my belly button while I am trying to exercise is annoying. I thought I was saving myself a lot of money buying all of my workout gear at discount prices, but the shirts I got were not saving me any headaches.
Richard Simmons might be on drugs too,
but please don't dress like him to come
go to the gym.
            There’s this funny rationalization that starts to happen when you are buying things that are related to good habits – and this is why I liken Lululemon to a crack habit. If I am buying clothes to wear to the gym to exercise, which is a healthy productive habit, it seems like it is a completely reasonable expense (I believe a logical person may consider this irrational). I justify these purchases in the same way I justify the purchase of any book that will help to make me wiser, more well read, or better educated (are you starting to understand why I am broke?). Since I needed shirts that would not irritate me while I exercise, I went to Lululemon to see what all the fuss was about. OF COURSE, they have LONG shirts for people with LONG torsos and wouldn’t you know it? They are also comfortable, soft, AND they are snug enough to stay put while you move around. This was just the beginning.
            One $42 racerback tank (COUGH GAG SPUTTER) was all it took. It was like the gateway top to more expensive, more luxurious, extra comfortable, want-to-live-in clothes. I even bought one fuzzy sweatshirt type thing at Christmas time (it was a present to myself) with the logic that since it was SO comfortable, I would want to wear it so much that it would make me go to more ashtanga yoga classes in the winter time, just so I could put it on afterwards. ? This is how they rope you in. They get you to buy one long torso racerback tank and all of a sudden, you want shorts, and sweatshirts, and cropped pants, and long pants, and hooded things, and tee shirts, and all kinds of things at INSANELY RIDICULOUS prices. What’s up with your prices, Lulu? Your product is made in Southeast Asia, not Canada! There’s no reason it should cost so much.
Look at those jugs bounce!
            While we’re on to the questions, Lulu – I’ve been pushed to ask you why you can’t come out with any suitable sports bras for chesty girls. You had some and then you discontinued them. All the ladies want is something that lifts and separates, instead of smashing and uniboobing. Do you have something against ladies with bosoms exercising? They have just as much a right to run as anyone else. I know it’s not a chauvinistic oppression in the works – if that were the case Baywatch never would have lasted and no one would know who Pamela Anderson was.  

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