“One way out is to explain what your brand stands for.” That’s what Jennifer Maanavi, a Columbia Business School graduate, did with Physique 57.
A former client at the beloved Lotte Berk Method studio, which popularized ballet barre-based exercises in the U.
In 2000, the parliament of South Africa enacted the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, which has among its primary objectives the prevention of hate speech terms such as coolie (koelie).
“It’s like surfing where you have to be present.” In turn, her company’s marketing efforts focus on how yoga can give busy people a break and some “personal space. Kearney, the so-called “athleisure” industry was valued at nearly $46 billion last year, up from around $35 billion in 2014.
Then, the business folk found a way to bring the cool factor out of the studio via merchandising. The pioneer was Lululemon, the Vancouver-founded apparel maker whose logo now marks the derrière of every fashion-conscious fitness nut in the Western hemisphere and did $2.06 billion in sales last year. (That long, lithe muscles on attractive people are accentuated by yoga and barre probably helps.) I'm thrilled to share I'm partnering with Lipton on their fabulous new Lipton Wellness Range.
The lifestylization of fitness took off in 2001, when the supermodel Christy Turlington appeared on the cover of Time magazine in a yoga pose.
By then, finance-savvy fitness aficionados were already branding their pre-coffee workout as cool and healthy.
“With so many studios, it was an undifferentiated industry.
When that happens, price fall,” says Rohit Deshpande, a Harvard Business School professor who co-wrote an authoritative study on the branding of yoga.
Its mats, which retail in the low three figures, have been used by the likes of Lady Gaga and in 2008, it was acquired by a New York private equity firm.
“Yoga used to be practiced by [hippie] refugees maintaining some connection to the human development potential of the 60s,” he tells Moneyish half-jokingly.
“But as an architect and designer, I saw potential for a revolutionary shift.” Sterios isn’t the only one to have benefitted from the boutique fitness boom of the 21st century.