Thus, I spent most of my time in Cancún observing the events, rather than actively reporting. We agreed, and so I was unable to speak directly with any of the retailers on the trip. Shortly after, Justin Lyon, LuLaRoe’s chief marketing officer and DeAnne’s son-in-law, emailed the production team asking that we stop approaching them. When I did get the go-ahead to start interviewing retailers, I approached a handful of women, all of whom declined. After speaking with production, we decided I should not approach any of the sellers for interviews until the last day I was there. So they traveled to Cancún and brought me along as a consulting producer. I had ended up in Cancún because the producers of a documentary based on an article I wrote about the company in 2020 wanted to get a sense of what LuLaRoe was like today. (During my time there, I saw hundreds of women and men donning LuLaRoe flooding the hotels.) That means that despite the deluge of bad press, lawsuits, and former retailers consistently trash-talking the company online, there are still approximately 18,000 women and men who sell LuLaRoe. Retailers were put up in two adjoining hotels, the JW Marriott (the supposedly nicer hotel that seemed to be hosting the top-tier sellers, as well as the Stidham family) and the Marriott, where I stayed.Īccording to a company disclaimer that LuLaRoe included on all of its Instagram posts about the trip, 724 of its retailers, or roughly 4%, qualified to attend the festivities in Cancún. After its 2020 cruise was canceled due to COVID-19, LuLaRoe announced the 2021 trip would be on land. The company has previously hosted cruises for the trip - retailers who attended told me they got an all-inclusive stay on the ship but paid their own travel there. Retailers get to enjoy days of relaxing, partying, and excursions (sold separately), and also attend presentations from business leaders and company networking events. These events function as part vacation, part tent revival for LuLaRoe’s most loyal. The events in Cancún were part of LuLaRoe’s "D.R.E.A.M." trip, an incentive it hosts annually for its top sellers. That it’s still attracting people to the brand might be the most surprising part of this MLM’s story. Many said their experience with LuLaRoe left them with shattered dreams, lost confidence, and strained relationships.īut even in the wake of these stories, LuLaRoe is still operational. Some women told me they even filed for bankruptcy. Over the years, I have spoken with dozens of women who thought they could make full-time pay for part-time work with LuLaRoe, only to lose tens of thousands of dollars instead. It has faced multiple class action lawsuits from both its retailers and its customers a settlement with the attorney general of Washington, after the state accused the company of running a pyramid scheme and a pending $49 million lawsuit from its former supplier. Since then, though, LuLaRoe has been beset by endless drama. Within just a few years, LuLaRoe was reportedly a billion-dollar company, and had made social media influencers out of its founder, DeAnne Stidham, her husband, Mark, and their extended family. When I first wrote about the company back in 2017, LuLaRoe was a hot brand known for its “ buttery, soft leggings,” which had taken off like wildfire in middle America despite the company barely making a name for itself in the fashion world. The belly flop contest was just one activity for the day, which was filled with networking events, a pool float race, and optional experiences like shopping and fishing. This was the first time I had ever been to a LuLaRoe event in person. Held in Cancún’s Zona Hotelera, a strip of beachfront property filled with luxury resorts, the party was made up of people who had come from all over the US because of LuLaRoe, a multilevel marketing clothing company that I have been covering for more than four years. It didn’t make much sense to me, but everyone flopping seemed to be having a blast. In September 2021, over Labor Day weekend, I sat on a beach chair in Cancún watching dozens of adults participate in a belly flop contest in a resort pool.
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