Making It: Game Day Gear

From the beginning, we knew it would be a powerful collaboration. We approached the three Canadian women’s beach volleyball pairs with our own dream duo of Clare Robertson, from our women’s design team, and Eileen Wilson, from our global fit team. Robertson and Wilson would create uniforms for the six athletes that were fully customized with individual coverage and fit preferences. The gear would also express the athletes’ pride in representing Canada and buck the tired stereotype of beach volleyball being merely a “sexy” sport—make no mistake; these are serious competitors. 

Robertson and Wilson kicked off the project with a focus on how the gear will feel on the athlete. It started with a brainstorming session, where everyone was invited to contribute ideas about what would make the best beach volleyball uniform out there. “Functionally, I want something that’s going to stay on, I’m going to feel comfortable with, and I don’t even think about while I’m playing. On top of that, I want to feel strong and I want to feel professional,” says Heather Bansley, a Canadian beach volleyball player heading to the event this summer.

That approach is typical to the lululemon design process; every piece is designed with the goal of eliminating distractions so athletes can be present and focus on performance. When the athletes shared that having to adjust and readjust their suits is their principle distraction during a game, the design duo went all-in to create a uniform that stayed put.

Over a six-month collaboration and a design process involving three rounds of prototypes, Robertson and Wilson racked up the frequent flyer miles, jetting to Toronto, Shanghai, Redondo Beach, and a factory near the town of Porto, Portugal to observe how the sample suits performed while the athletes trained, and to execute on-site design updates.

Whether these fit sessions happened in a hotel room in Shanghai or in the climate-controlled chamber (set to feel like a hot beach) at our Vancouver headquarters, the athletes were tasked with putting on the prototypes, performing a circuit, and reporting back. That feedback—along with plenty of observation—allowed the design team to nail personalized fit and bum coverage and do away with the gear-that-won’t-stay-put issue, once and for all.

Throughout the process, Robertson and Wilson listened closely; every time the athletes shared an issue, the duo pounced on the challenge.

Bra-strap chafing was tackled in collaboration with a Portuguese engineer who created a new machine to bond seams on the straps of the bra top, a stitchless technique that lets the straps lie flat on the skin. Stabilizers were added to the front of the bra to increase support and eliminate unwanted movement on the court. Sand getting, uh, places it shouldn’t, was eliminated by a premium, Italian-made fabric with a particularly tight weave.

When Robertson learned that the athletes particularly loved certain details from a handful of bra styles, she combined the feminine front of our Free to Be Bra with the supportive, strappy back of the Energy Bra. The result? A beautiful top that functions for the digs, dives, and spikes of a beach volleyball game. 

As the project drew to a close, Robertson reflected on how her relationships with the athletes had deepened over six months. “Success for this project was involving the athletes through the whole thing. We started by understanding how they wanted to feel and used that as the basis for designing.”

Find your passion. Practice your craft. Settle for nothing less. That’s what craftsmanship means to us.