Dennis J Wilson

Chip Wilson’s first eureka moment came in a yoga class in 1997. Having grown up “socially inept,” he says, he had always been perplexed by women. Wilson and some partners had just sold a snowboarding apparel company called Westbeach, where he had developed an expensive stretch fabric to make high-end long underwear; now he thought it might work for yoga tights. Westbeach had sold especially well in Japan. Wilson had also briefly marketed a subbrand called Homeless that was very popular there — in part, he deduced, because it had the letter L in it, which signaled to Japanese customers that it was authentically American. The first Lululemon store opened in Vancouver in early 1999. By 2005, when Lululemon took on private equity partners, the company was valued at $225 million. It went public in 2007. Wilson is no longer involved in Lululemon’s day-to-day operations, and last August, he sold half his Lululemon shares (more than 13 percent of the company) to Advent International, a private equity firm. Shannon Wilson, meanwhile, left the company. With Wilson’s oldest son, J.J., she started a new line, Kit and Ace, selling $80 T-shirts and other apparel made of that “technical cashmere” fabric. In addition to his two sons from an earlier marriage, who are in their 20s, Wilson and Shannon have three more sons: an 11-year-old and 9-year-old twins.