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Lululemon founder steps down after ‘thighs’ remarks

Chip Wilson’s uncomfortable position atop Lululemon has stretched on long enough.

The yoga-sweats chain said its controversial founder is stepping down as chairman following a slew of public gaffes — mostly recently last month, when he blamed a yoga-pants recall this spring partly on overweight customers.

“Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for [the pants],” Wilson said, asked about tights recalled this spring that were so sheer they revealed women’s buttocks.

“It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there,” Wilson said in a TV interview.

Lululemon said Tuesday its insert-foot-in-mouth founder will be replaced as chairman by lead director Michael Casey prior to the company’s annual meeting next June.

Still, Wilson, Lululemon’s largest individual shareholder with 27 percent of the company, will remain a director.

CEO Christine Day, who announced in June she will resign following the ruckus over the sheer yoga pants, will be succeeded in January by Laurent Potdevin, recently president of TOMS shoes.

Lululemon insisted there was no connection between the two moves.

Nevertheless, the bungling billionaire Wilson increasingly has been viewed as “radioactive” by prospective hires, according to one executive recruiter, citing his reputation as an incurable meddler.

Indeed, insiders say the departure of the highly respected Day, never explained to the satisfaction of many investors, partly resulted from clashes with Wilson.

“My values include discretion,” Day said when pressed on a June conference call about her decision to leave.

Wilson, meanwhile, clashed with customers in fall 2011 when he emblazoned Lululemon tote bags with the question, “Who is John Galt?”

Galt, as it turns out, is the hero of uber-capitalist novelist Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” — not exactly in the sweet spot of the yoga demographic.

In a 2004, Wilson said in an interview he settled on the name Lululemon for his brand partly because it was difficult for the Japanese to pronounce, which he saw as a plus for marketing in the country.

“It’s funny to watch them try to say it,” Wilson said.

Shares of Lululemon, which generated $1.4 billion in revenue last year, slipped 1.7 percent to close at $69.12, giving the company a market capitalization of $10 billion.