In this week's Retail Therapy, there's a cautionary tale of sorts for all retailers.
As Lululemon found out Thursday, the pack of Beyoncé fans formally known as the Beyhive are a loyal, if confrontational, crew—one you should be ready to encounter if you ever dare to insult the Queen Bee. It's a love than runs deep, and baby, you don't mess with it, even if you have an athleisure-related bone to pick with her.
Without further ado, below are some of the most interesting retail reads from around the Web.
High class drinkage
The Washington Post did some deep-dive investigative reporting into Gwyneth Paltrow’s infamous $200 smoothie and its crazy list of ingredients, including a fungus that basically turns insects into zombies (no big deal) and some “pearl dust” sold on her e-commerce site for $65. The scientific consensus on the smoothie: yeah...not worth it.
Alien footwear
Nike recently gave us a real-life version of its Air Mags featured in "Back to the Future," and now Reebok is following suit with its own cinematically-inspired footwear. The company is releasing its Reebok Alien Stompers, replicas of the high-top footwear rocked by Sigourney Weaver in the movie Aliens, on April 26.
Beyond being super stylish, they also have a nifty alien-release mechanism if you ever find yourself in a bind with an alien queen.
Whoops
British fast-fashion mecca Topshop released a seemingly-innocent blog post last week titled “6 Reasons Why We Are Adele’s Biggest Fans” (I mean, who isn’t?). They followed it up with this seemingly-innocent Instagram:
Alas, the Internet can be a cruel place. Instead of inspiring fan response, HuffingtonPost reports that Topshop instead encountered backlash on social media, pointing out that its choice of caption on the post was…a bit ironic.
It's funny because those are the only sizes who suit your clothes and Adele is not any of them https://t.co/jYqrx08TfV
— Hoe for tha Glow (@NaturallyTiss) March 22, 2016
So topshop are shouting about how much they love Adele... Shame they don't love her enough to make clothing that would fit curvy girls!
— Bold Magazine UK (@ukboldmagazine) March 24, 2016
Double whoops
While we’re on the topic of social media shade, Lululemon accidentally rattled the Beyhive (the self-given name of Beyoncé fans) on Thursday after tweeting about Beyoncé's new athleisure line, Ivy Park. As Racked reports, it all started with one question on Twitter (which has since been deleted).
Then the Beyhive caught wind of it.
@sailorpandaxo No harm meant, we're big fans.
— lululemon athletica (@lululemon) March 31, 2016