Sheridan still feels like home to lululemon store designer

As a lululemon senior store designer who oversees the company's out-of-home experiences across North America, Christine Lui (Visual Merchandising Arts '12) acknowledges her professional life might seem a bit nomadic.

Over the past year, Lui has helped lululemon open a unique Milwaukee Bucks apparel concourse kiosk inside the NBA team's home arena; designed post-race pop-up shops at such prestigious events as the lululemon 10K Tour and the Run With the Roses; and developed shop-in-shops for dozens of campus partnerships across North America, particularly for college football programs in the United States. "It's been a lot of fun travel, and vastly different from the beauty space," says Lui, who previously spent eight years as the head of merchandising and store design at The Body Shop North America.

But if there's one place where Lui's career has long-standing roots, it's her alma mater. More than a decade after graduating from Sheridan, Lui remains intertwined with her former program (now named Visual Merchandising Design) by regularly visiting as a guest speaker, serving on the program's Professional Advisory Council, and maintaining relationships with coordinator Louise Franklin and her other former instructors.

In fact, Sheridan's Material ConneXion Library at Hazel McCallion Campus — which houses 1,500 leading-edge material samples from throughout the world, ranging from leather made from cow stomachs and apple peels to carpet made from recycled fishing nets — was one of Lui's first stops last fall after she was hired by lululemon. "It's such a great resource for anyone within the design space," says Lui, who Franklin guided through the library to generate ideas for sustainable materials that could be used to build an apparel and merchandise store within the Maison Olympique du Canada at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

“(Sheridan is) my community. I may not know the students today, but we are all part of the artist collective.”

– Christine Lui

Sustainable fabrication is among the many fundamental skills of visual merchandising that Lui learned during her time at Sheridan, along with merchandising, styling, interior design, production design and brand activation. She says she utilizes each of these skills daily in her current role.

"I have always strived to be a visionary and to hold the holistic picture for my projects. My core passion lies in curating one-of-a-kind experiences through storytelling, so to have the opportunity to craft brand expressions through environmental design has been an honour," she says. “Sheridan offers an incredible program, equipping students with all the tools necessary to become a visual artist entering the industry, no matter the avenue they choose. This program set me up for my career, and if I hadn’t taken it, I may not be where I am now."

That appreciation might further explain why Lui remains so connected to Sheridan.

"It’s my community. I may not know the students today, but we are all part of the artist collective," she says. "I want to share what I have learned and experienced to inspire others to follow their passions and transition ideas into realities."

— Learn how Sheridan's Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design trains designers, artists and other creatives to realize the full potential of their talent.

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Pictured in photos are (from top to bottom) the finish line and pop-up shop at a lululemon 10K Tour event; the Milwaukee Bucks concourse kiosk inside Fiserv Forum; an interior design Lui created for a The Body Shop store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre; and Lui.