From Belt Bags to Backpacks, Lululemon Has a Grip on the Accessory Market
Lululemon built its name on leggings, but the bag category has quietly become just as serious a business. The brand now offers everything from fanny packs and crossbody bags to full-size carryalls and backpacks, covering the range of what people actually need – gym mornings, work commutes, weekend travel, concert nights. It is not a single hero product. It is a whole system.
Most of those bag styles carry at least 4 out of 5 stars across thousands of customer reviews.
That breadth is worth paying attention to, because it signals something beyond the typical activewear brand dabbling in accessories. Lululemon is not offering a token tote stitched with its logo and calling it a day. The lineup has grown specific – bags designed for distinct use cases, with materials and features that reflect how people actually move through their weeks. Whether that stickiness translates into lasting wardrobe loyalty, or stays tied to the athleisure moment, is a different question. For now, the demand is real.
The Backpack That Senior Writer Karina Hoshikawa Travels With
The Everyday Backpack has one consistent champion: Karina Hoshikawa, senior writer at Refinery29, who describes it as her go-to travel pack for years. Her case for it is specific rather than vague. The bag is slim in profile but holds more than it looks like it should, with compartments organized well enough that things do not disappear into dead zones – a problem that plagues bags with too many pockets. It has a padded sleeve that fits a 15-inch laptop, and the outer fabric is a water-repellent, recycled nylon that cleans up easily after spills.
She uses it primarily for travel, but flags that the design works equally well for daily commutes or school – which explains the name.
That kind of real-world endorsement carries weight precisely because it is not general. Hoshikawa is not saying the bag looks nice. She is describing specific scenarios – spills, laptop fits, compartment logic – that anyone who has wrestled with a bad travel bag will immediately recognize. The Everyday Backpack also connects to the broader Everywhere line, which includes the Everywhere Belt Bag, one of Lululemon’s most talked-about products. The Everywhere Backpack follows the same philosophy: classic shape, durable ripstop fabric, with 100% recycled polyester as the primary material.
The Rest of the Backpack Lineup, Broken Down by Use
Beyond the Everyday and Everywhere styles, Lululemon’s backpack range branches into more specific territory. The All Sport Backpack is built for outdoor use – hikes, long bike rides, anything that requires gear and hydration storage. It is rated highly by customers who are putting it through actual physical conditions rather than airport security lines. Then there is the Wunderlust Backpack Mini, positioned as the more flexible option for people who want something lighter and less structured than a full pack.
The logic of offering multiple backpacks at different scales and purposes is straightforward: different lives require different bags, and a single backpack cannot serve a trail runner and a daily commuter equally well. Lululemon is betting that customers who already trust the brand’s leggings will extend that trust to the bag they carry alongside them. So far, the reviews suggest that bet is paying off, though the bag market is considerably more crowded than it was when Lululemon’s belt bag first went viral.
What keeps these products in circulation – on social feeds, in airports, slung over shoulders at farmers’ markets – is partly the brand recognition and partly the consistency of build quality. Recycled materials appear across several styles, which gives buyers an easy secondary justification beyond aesthetics. The bags look intentional. They hold up. They travel well. For a category that used to be an afterthought for athletic brands, that is a meaningful position to have built.
The Wunderlust Backpack Mini is currently listed among Lululemon’s new arrivals with already-strong early reviews – which, for a brand that has trained its customers to move fast on restocks, might be the most telling detail of all.
