Dive Brief:

• Lululemon partnered with Penguin Random House books for a pop-up library. It's located in Lululemon's HUB Seventeen community space in New York City's Flatiron building, where the athletic retailer currently hosts classes in adjoining studios, according to a press release emailed to Retail Dive. 

• The store includes spaces for guests to read or check-out over 1,000 books, as well as iPads to listen to audiobooks. The pop-up will also host several events throughout its duration such as celebrity book readings and curated food experiences.

• The pop-up is free and open to the public through the spring of 2019. Meghan Chrisholm, a Lululemon spokesperson, told Retail Dive in an email that both companies hope to provide a space for guests to learn and discuss topics that matter among the community.

Dive Insight:

A book publisher teaming up with an athletic apparel retailer may seem like a "random" pairing. However, this may be another play by Lululemon to push itself further away from solely selling athletic apparel to transforming itself into a total lifestyle brand.

The company earlier this month announced plans to expand its first loyalty program, which would include, "access to sweat classes, attendance at curated events, personal development and free expedited shipping on e-commerce orders," according to CEO and Director Calvin McDonald on a call with analysts earlier this month.

"Penguin Random House has an extraordinary list of published books that we wanted to bring directly to our lululemon guest through this curated collection of lifestyle titles in an array of categories, including mindfulness, food, style and more," Chisholm said.