Left On Friday Founders Went From Lululemon To Olympics

As I discovered myself eagerly watching the Paris Olympics on my tv — and noticing how distinctive Workforce Canada’s seashore volleyball uniforms had been — little did I do know that I used to be being launched to my new favourite swimwear model.

Launched in 2018, Left On Friday is the brainchild of co-workers-turned-friends-turned-co-founders, Laura Low Ah Kee and Shannon Savage, who, fittingly, met whereas working at one other beloved Canadian lively model: Lululemon. Low Ah Kee got here to the corporate considerably unexpectedly (“I believed I used to be gonna be there for 3 months, and I used to be there for 12 years”), working up from being a visible merchandiser in a retailer to a product assistant at HQ, to a service provider, to the top of velocity to market. Savage began as a design assistant for the boys’s line earlier than increasing into extra classes, ultimately changing into VP of ladies’s design. (Her “declare to fame,” as she places it? “The inception of the ladies’s run and outerwear strains.” NBD.)

Low Ah Kee says they “would have evening chats,” certainly one of which planted the seed for what would change into Left on Friday: “We had been like, ‘Oh my god, there’s so many swim manufacturers, however no person is making lively swim that is lovely and you may additionally put on to the resort.’”

“It was nice that we had been at Lululemon throughout the time that we had been, as a result of the coaching and the publicity had been so sturdy. We did not stick in these tiny little lanes,” Savage says. “We may take all of these abilities and be very assured in beginning our personal firm.”

Savage and Low Ah Kee each left the corporate, for separate causes, in 2016. Wanting again, they each say they’d constructive experiences and realized beneficial classes, equivalent to problem-solving for the patron and, in flip, creating design options for the corporate. “I actually understood the market, the model Lululemon on the time, what was occurring within the trend world, and what was occurring within the sport world, so I may tie it collectively and ship one thing that was impactful,” Low Ah Kee explains.