ily physical and mental training, while highlighting the latest men’s training apparel, including the brand’s Metal Vent Tech franchise. Accelerating growth in the men’s market  Canadian Lululemon, traditionally associated with women’s yoga wear, has aggressively expanded its offerings to cater to a broader audience. Lululemon Athletica CEO Calvin McDonald said men’s products now account for 25 per cent of sales, and awareness of the brand among male consumers in the US is still growing. With an ambitious goal of reaching US$12.5 billion in revenue by next year, Lululemon is betting big on product innovation, category expansion, and high-profile partnerships, such as its recent collaborations with Australian golfer Min Woo Lee and American tennis player Frances Tiafoe. “Think of the brand when it began, it was a women’s yoga brand. And today, it’s serving both genders, it’s serving many activities – golf, tennis, hiking, but also training and running,” McDonald said in January at the National Retail Federation conference in New York.  The decision to align with Hamilton signals a strategic move toward the high-performance sportswear segment, an area where the brand faces increasing competition from the likes of Vuori, Gymshark and Alo.  A strategic fit or brand contradiction? While the partnership appears to be a natural evolution of Lululemon’s growing ambitions in the men’s activewear sector, it has also sparked debate among industry experts.  “Rarely has a partnership felt so symbiotic,” DHR Global partner Mathew Dixon said. “Hamilton is arguably the greatest F1 driver ever and a changemaker in motorsport. His legacy, particularly through The Hamilton Commission, aligns with Lululemon’s values of pushing boundaries and driving positive change.” However, some retail strategists believe the partnership presents a potential brand identity crisis. “The Hamilton-Lululemon pairing strikes me as a brand doing gymnastics it wasn’t built for,” Kristoff D’oria di Cirie, an immersive retail expert and founder of Insogni Studio, told Inside Retail. “Lululemon thrived in the wellness-obsessed feminine sphere with spiritual undertones, and Hamilton’s Formula 1 machismo creates a jarring cognitive dissonance.” The expert further warned that consumers might instinctively reject such a brand contradiction, emphasising that the partnership could alienate Lululemon’s core audience without necessarily bringing in a new one. A strategy aimed at female consumers? A different perspective suggests this partnership aims not only to attract male customers but also to resonate with Lululemon’s core female audience. Nielsen research has stated that about 40 per cent of Formula 1’s 750 million fans are women.  This strategy aligns with a growing trend of partnerships between female-oriented brands and Formula 1. L’Oréal has partnered with Carlos Sainz, while Aston Martin has joined forces with skincare brand Elemis. These collaborations indicate that F1’s high-profile athletes are being used strategically to reach female consumers, who typically drive purchases of premium lifestyle and wellness products. If this is indeed Lululemon’s approach, it could prove to be a shrewd move: reinforcing its standing with its loyal female base while subtly promoting its men’s collection through an aspirational figure like Hamilton. Navigating the competitive landscape Lululemon is not alone in its push to capture a larger share of the men’s activewear market. The global sportswear industry is projected to grow by 7 per cent annually through 2027, McKinsey & Company has stated, with many brands vying for a piece of this expanding pie. Lululemon’s revenue reached US$9.6 billion in 2023, and the company projects fourth-quarter growth of 11 per cent to 12 per cent, compared with the same period in the previous year. Despite the skepticism surrounding the Hamilton partnership, Lululemon remains bullish on its ability to court male consumers. The company opened its largest store in the EMEA region last month on London’s Regent Street. Moreover, McDonald said at the National Retail Federation conference that while Lululemon’s men’s business is still evolving, there remains substantial room for growth, particularly in more mature markets like North America. “In our more mature markets, Canada and the US, as the brand grows, as assortment grows, we’re growing away from a brand for ‘her’ or a yoga brand for her. So I think in the US, the opportunity is to continue to drive awareness that it’s a brand for ‘him’, which is why we’re building products as well as partnerships with Min Woo Lee or Frances Tiafoe that we just announced. But we still see a tremendous amount of growth opportunity in the US through our stores, our product, innovation, category expansion and our men’s business,” he said.   Further reading: Take the wheel: Behind LVMH’s billion-dollar bet on Formula 1.