The Yoga Culture
The death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on February 6 was a singular reminder of the magical transformation that has taken place over the western world’s meditative landscape since the Beatles discovered this remarkable mystic in the late 60s.
It was during the Maharishi’s early rise to fame that small yoga ads started appearing in such local alternative weeklies as The Village Voice in New York City. Fast forward to the decade of the aughts. After bubbling under the surface for more than 30 years, yoga’s popularity is surging.
Vancouver-based lululemon athletica, whose wares have been featured on “Desperate Housewives,” has seen sales double every year since it was founded in 1998, reaching $149 million for the 12 months ending January 2007. Its Omega logo is now the “Louis Vuitton” equivalent of yoga.
In a time-compressed world, its meditative powers are now appreciated by an estimated 16.5 million Americans who practice this 5000-year-old art, according to a February 2005 Yoga Journal/Harris Interactive study. That’s more than triple the number a decade earlier when a 1994 Roper poll found 6 million yoga practitioners.
Yoga has gotten so big there’s a demographic audience dubbed “Yoga Mamas” – a desirable marketing target due to its heavily networked nature, both in social and technology terms. Yoga Mamas and other devotees helped create a $1 billion yoga fashion apparel market.
The mainstreaming of yoga “street fashions” has floated the boat of lululemon athletica, the premier yoga apparel brand. On July 27, the company raised $328 million from Canada’s largest initial public offering in 2007. lululemon’s shares rose 56% on the first day of trading, jumping $10 to $28 on Nasdaq, giving the Vancouver-based company a market value of $1.9 billion. Its shares (LULU) now trade at $32, as this story is written.
That’s not a surprising given that women make up 77% of yoga practitioners. Young women also are the fastest-growing segment of yoga newcomers, according to a November 2004 Yoga Journal poll, with 18-to-24-year-olds who practice yoga rising 46% between 2003 and 2004.
This past June more than 800 yoga fans took part in the fifth annual “Mind over Madness” yoga spectacle in New York, proving that sanctuaries can be built even in the midst of turbulent Times Square.
Yoga retreats have become big business too. In New York, the Dream Hotel became the first hotel to feature a Deepak Chopra yoga studio directly attached to a hotel. Meanwhile, many resorts around the globe, like Mexico’s Maya Tulum, now offer yoga getaways for those who like to practice in exotic locales.
Vikram Chatwal’s Dream Hotel in New York offers a Deepak Chopra yoga studio for hotel guests. In 2006, Chatwal opened a second Dream in Bangkok.
Americans spend some $3 billion annually on yoga classes, equipment, clothing, vacations, videos and more, according to a Yoga Journal magazine study, fueled in part by aging baby boomers seeking less aggressive ways to stay fit. The trend has even spread to Apple’s iPod, which now adds appropriate music to your routine:
Yoga on your iPod? Why not? With PumpPod PumpedAsanas Level 3 (US$29) you can strike a warrior pose and learn its Hindu term to the beat of your favorite playlist. With more than 100 million global yoga practitioners and 120 million iPod and iPhone users, there’s bound to be a big intersection.
With the western world’s 450 million baby boomers increasingly looking eastward for contemplative inner peace, and Generation X and Y joining the flow, the yoga culture is certain to spread in decades to come.
Ubertrends: Fountain of Youth, Time Compression
Value Propellants: Strength, Flexibility, Youth, Relaxation, Escapism
3 comments February 18th, 2008