If you’re at the mall, you’ve likely seen middle schoolers walking around in packs with matching belt bags slung across their chests, stuffed with lip gloss and pocket money. If you look closely, you might catch the Lululemon logo glistening on the bottom right hand corner.

Lululemon’s Everywhere Belt Bag has become a uniform for a generation of teens and tweens. But even though the bag has become iconic, Lululemon has decided to redesign it, adding a range of features that will make it more functional and harder for competitors to copy. Through this update, Lululemon wants to show off its obsessive attention to detail and keep its youngest consumers engaged.

The wild success of the belt bag came as a surprise to Lululemon, because it had never even planned to sell this product. The company originally designed the bag for store employees who needed to be hands-free as they engaged with customers on the floor. “They needed to have something to help carry their mobile ordering device, gift cards, and other items they needed on the floor,” says Philip Hamilton, VP of global merchandising at Lululemon.

The company got constant requests from customers asking where they could get one. So in 2018, Lululemon released a retail version for $38. Interest around the bag built as people talked on Reddit and Instagram about how handy it was. During the pandemic, when people stopped going to the office but frequently went out for walks, a hands-free belt bag was particularly useful.

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