Lululemon founder Chip Wilson bows out

Chip Wilson, the at-times controversial founder of Lululemon, is stepping away from the athletic apparel company he began in 1998, resigning from the board he publicly battled with last year. In a press release Monday, Wilson said the company "is back on track" and that the move would free him up to work more on a different apparel company that his wife and son launched last year.

His departure comes after a tumultuous period for the company. In 2013, Lululemon dealt with its sheer yoga pants fiasco and a change in CEOs. Then this past May, after Wilson caused an uproar by saying the company's pants don't work for some women's bodies (and by botching his subsequent apology), he officially stepped down as chairman.

However in June, Wilson, who was still a member of the company's board and then owned 27 percent of its shares, announced he had voted against two outside directors, saying he was concerned about the company's focus on its products and innovation. Reports followed that he had been speaking with private equity firms to try to take the company private.

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By August, Wilson had reached an agreement with Lululemon to sell half his stake to private equity firm Advent International; in return, the company promised a corporate governance review and added two new board members from Advent.

"Trying to affect a fundamental shift in direction is hard and I had to raise a strong voice to make myself heard while taking decisive action to implement change," Wilson said in Monday's statement. "I am happy to say that I now believe the company has returned to the core values that made it great."

Wilson's foot-in-mouth comments about women's bodies were hardly the only controversial remarks attributed to him over the years. In a profile published Monday by the New York Times, Wilson addressed several of these gaffes, including his much-criticized apology (he said he thought the video was only for internal use) and reports that he had said it was "funny" to watch Japanese people pronounce "Lululemon" (he told the Times he didn't say that).

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As Wilson moves on from Lululemon, he isn't exactly going quietly. He told the Times that "if you are doing a brand well, you need to offend somebody, or you're not standing for anything."

It remains to be seen whether he'll apply that philosophy to his next business, Kit and Ace, a "technical cashmere" apparel business that his family started. Yet he does say the new company will compete with his former one. "Because all clothing is moving into technical athleta-leisure or business athleticism," he told the Times, "that's where it's all going." The new brand, he said, "is the next Lululemon, so to speak."

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