According to the latimes.com on April 4, Lululemon Athletica Inc. announced that its chief product officer, Sheree Waterson, will step down from her position at the company.
Ms. Waterson’s exit quickly follows the Lululemon see-through yoga pants fiasco and subsequent recall of their widely popular garment due to “a level of sheerness in some of our women’s black Luon bottoms that falls short of our very high standards,” the company said today.
RBC Capital Markets, a premier investment bank and part of leading financial services provider Royal Bank of Canada, downgraded Lululemon’s stock Thursday to “sector perform” from “outperform.” Not surprising as their stock price has been volatile since the recall announcement which is paving the way for a shortage of approximately 17% of all the pants sold in their stores. The move is expected to cost the company millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Sheree Waterson, with the Vancouver-based company since 2008, will leave her post on April 15. RBC Analyst Howard Tubin indicated she “has been a strong creative asset” and “a strong creative leader.” Furthermore, in a note to investors, Tubin wrote that the departure of Waterson “brings a new level of uncertainty” and without her, “visibility on future product direction” is less clear and is likely to remain so while Lululemon searches for her replacement.
While Lululemon’s CEO Christine Day said, "We appreciate the many contributions that Sheree made during her time with Lululemon, particularly in the area of design," it seems that the company needs to go back to the drawing board and develop better quality control protocols.
In the meantime, Lululemon customers will need to purchase their yoga pants from another source. Perhaps one of the big discount retailers will find a designer who will come up with a pant whose bottom will be a little less see-through the next time the wearer prepares to enter into the Downward Facing Dog pose.
Sources: latimes.com, The Wall Street Journal
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