So How Are You Surviving the Lululemon Pantscapade Humiliating ‘Bend Over’ Test?

Uttanasana by Bobby Clennell

Would you mind bending over so we can tell if you need a refund or just your dignity back?

So unless you were living under a pile of yoga props for the past week, you probably heard about the major crisis involving Lululemon’s see-through yoga pants, their massive recall and subsequent proverbial shit hitting the fan.  However, if you don’t own the extra sheer peekaboo pants and haven’t tried to return them to the store then you might not have been asked to do the bend over test.

The what? Yes, lulus are requiring you to pop an uttanasana in the store so they can deem your crack et al visible enough for a refund. But don’t worry, they’ll keep smiling cheerfully the whole time no matter what they see and no matter how they rate your peep show. Testing the pants in the comfort of your own home is not good enough, apparently.

According to rightfully upset customers (or “guests,” whatever), people returning pants are asked to do the see-through “Can you see my parts?” pants dance and are then left to feel even more exposed whether they pass or fail the test. A post on the lulu facebook page describes the humiliating experience (we encourage you to read the entire exchange with lulu customer service):

I went into my local store to return my Astro pants and Invert crops, both purchased this month. I was asked to BEND OVER in order to determine sheerness. The sales associate then perused my butt in the dim lighting of the change room and deemed them “not sheer”. I felt degraded that this is how the recall is being handled. I called the GEC to confirm this is their protocol, and they verified that yes, the “educators” will verify sheerness by asking the customer to bend over.

CEO Christine Day also confirmed the necessary bend over process that helped them “reveal” the problem in the first place, yet she still managed to offer no answers for the full moon mystery.

“The truth of the matter is the only way you can actually test for the issue is to put the pants on and bend over,” she said on the call, reports Bloomberg. “Just putting the pants on themselves doesn’t solve the problem. It passed all of the basic metric tests and the hand-feel is relatively the same, so it was very difficult for the factories to isolate the issue, and it wasn’t until we got in the store and started putting it on people that we could actually see the issue.”

We imagine you could opt out of the bend over show if you really put your foot down and stomp it a few times. Tadasana, people. But the fact that hiney scanning is happening at all is heinous.

Whether or not this whole thing was a big mistake or a some screwed up sadomasochistic marketing, the way the controversy-ridden lulu handles this situation will spell how well they will not grow exponentially as they have been, but hold onto once loyal now incident-weary customers still willing to shell out $100 for their yoga pants. Or tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine.

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Earlier…

The Great Lululemon Yoga Pants Shortage Goes from Sheer to Scandalous

Lululemon Recalls See-Through Yoga Pants, Causes Shortage, Rioting in the Streets (Probably)