Forget everything you know about gym retail. At the new Lululemon flagship in Singapore’s Ngee Ann City, you won’t find pumping beats or fluorescent sales racks. Instead, you’ll step into a space that feels almost monastic in its stillness—until you realise it’s humming quietly with intention. Lululemon’s first-ever retail-meets-wellness concept in Southeast Asia doesn’t just sell stretch. It stretches the very idea of what a store can be.
There’s the shopping experience, sure: a clean-lined, oak-toned environment where Lululemon’s signature performancewear is displayed with gallery-level restraint. But directly beside it is within, a studio offering reformer Pilates, yoga, and breath-led classes under warm lighting and lattice ceilings that nod to traditional shophouses. Together, they form something closer to a lifestyle ecosystem than a simple shop-and-go.
For Southeast Asia’s hyper-connected, hyper-stimulated urbanites, it makes sense. Especially now.
A Cultural Shift in the Retail Script
Retail, especially in this part of the world, is undergoing a quiet metamorphosis. Across Southeast Asia, the rise of lifestyle centres, mixed-use developments, and transit hubs is transforming malls into something more porous and social. It’s not just about acquiring things—it’s about how you feel while doing so. According to PwC, 73% of consumers in the region rank “experience” as a top purchasing driver, just behind price and quality. This is not a side note. It’s a sea change.
Retailtainment, once the buzzword of industry panels, is now a baseline expectation. From pop-up galleries in Bangkok to sensory spas in Jakarta, the regional shopper has matured into a discerning guest, not a transactional customer. Lululemon’s new space taps directly into this trend, but also tries to gently subvert it. Instead of overloading the senses, it invites you to downshift. To sit. To breathe. And then, maybe, to buy.
Inside the Ngee Ann City Concept
Lululemon’s first-ever retail-meets-wellness store spans 5,994 square feet, with the adjoining within studio taking up 1,842. But this isn’t just about square footage. It’s about flow. Designed with curved forms, warm oak surfaces, and soft, layered lighting, the space echoes the principles of slow architecture. It’s a nod to both urban innovation and the natural world—retail as retreat.
This flagship also marks Lululemon’s boldest expression in Singapore to date. While the brand has recently opened new stores at Marina Bay Sands, Changi Airport, and Jem in Jurong, the Orchard Road site functions as the brand’s retail North Star—a physical embodiment of its aspirations in Asia.
Partnering with local movement studio within, helmed by longtime Lululemon ambassador Betty Kong, the brand gives the space a soul beyond strategy. Kong, who began her journey with Lululemon in Vancouver, now leads yoga and Pilates sessions in Singapore that centre not just the body, but the self. Her presence anchors the concept in lived experience.
“This space reflects everything I’ve come to understand about the power of slowing down,” Kong shares. “Partnering with Lululemon, where my own wellness journey started, brings a deep sense of purpose.”
A Concept Store That Moves With You
The layout of the space invites movement—literally. Designed with flow and flexibility in mind, the store’s wide walkways, sculptural furniture, and modular display zones reflect lululemon’s ‘Feel, Move, Think, Connect’ philosophy. But what makes this concept store feel different is the seamless blurring of boundaries between shopping and community gathering.
At the heart of the space lies a dedicated ‘Studio’ area, an open, multi-use enclave that hosts wellness classes, product education sessions, and mindfulness workshops. One weekend might feature yoga led by local instructors; another, breathwork or run-club meetups. This isn’t a pop-up marketing gimmick—it’s an infrastructural commitment to lifestyle.
Adding to the celebrations and to deepen community engagement, lululemon is hosting weekly community runs at Takashimaya Shopping Centre every Sunday until 27 July 2025. Participants can sign up online here, while more information about in-store classes is available at the Ngee Ann City store or on lululemon’s official website.
Information on the classes can be found at the store or their official website.
Not Just for the Wellness Crowd
Of course, skeptics might dismiss the store as another polished wellness pitch. But to walk through it is to sense something else. Perhaps it’s the way the walls curve instead of corner. Or how the soundscape dips into quietude rather than crescendo. Or maybe it’s how the instructors greet you by name after just one class. Either way, it feels like the kind of place that doesn’t just want your wallet. It wants your attention.
In an age where the retail experience is being radically redefined—from AI-assisted styling rooms to immersive flagship destinations that double as cultural forums—one thing is clear: the store of the future is no longer just about shopping. It’s about community, lifestyle, and storytelling. That’s precisely where lululemon’s new concept store at Ngee Ann City lands, with intent. When the average retail visit is measured in steps, not hours, this might sound ambitious. But Lululemon’s first-ever retail-meets-wellness concept is betting on the opposite: that time spent with intention—browsing, breathing, bending—will convert more meaningfully than impulse buys and flashing SALE signs.
Retail as a Third Place
Globally, brands are rethinking physical retail not as transactional spaces but as ‘third places’—neither home nor work, but somewhere in between. Lululemon has long leaned into this idea through its ambassador programmes and grassroots activations. What this concept store does is give that ethos a permanent, physical form.
“The ambition here isn’t just to move product,” says a regional spokesperson. “It’s to move people—emotionally, physically, and socially.”
It’s a sentiment that echoes across today’s retail landscape, where connection trumps conversion, and where the brands that succeed are those that embed themselves meaningfully into the fabric of daily life. Lululemon’s Ngee Ann City concept store does exactly that—not with spectacle, but with quiet, confident intention.
And in doing so, it marks a new chapter not just for the brand, but for how we experience lifestyle retail in Asia. As the brand continues its expansion across Singapore, the broader question is less about square footage and more about narrative. What kind of stories do spaces like this tell? Who gets to be part of them? And what does it say that a major North American brand is leaning into slow wellness at the heart of Orchard Road, one of Asia’s most frenetic commercial stretches?
In many ways, this is retail reimagined as relationship-building. Between brand and guest. Between breath and motion. Between commerce and care.
Lululemon may be famous for its leggings, but here, it’s selling something less tangible: presence.
And as Southeast Asia continues to rewire its retail DNA around experience, emotion, and community, one thing feels increasingly clear: what matters isn’t just what we buy. It’s how—and where—we choose to show up.
