time.com: $100 for a “stinkin'” yoga mat

It's a yoga mat rainbow! In hues that say 2001-2005.

So it’s no secret that yoga is booming (or rather, continues to boom) during this whole recession thing (unless you work in yoga publishing). The most read article on the Time magazine website today was a rant about the price of yoga mats, and how their sales continue to rise despite the recession.

$100 for a stinkin’ mat. A company called Manduka, which makes these luxury yoga props, has seen its sales rise 55% in the first four months of 2009. Sales at Amazon.com during this period are up a stunning 87%, and the company just signed a deal with Dick’s Sporting Goods, a major retailer with 389 stores across the country. [via Time]

The article goes on to tell us that yoga practitioners have increased from 4.3 million in 2001 to 12 million in 2008 and that yoga has experienced a “spike in popularity” since the economic downtown last September. Owners of yoga studios around North America have seen increased traffic. “The feedback from new clients: they are either unemployed and want to maintain their mental health or insecure about their current job status and want to maintain their mental health. ‘The meditative aspects of yoga,’ [studio owner, Irene] Narissi says, ‘satisfy the need to chill out.'”