- M.M. LaFleur is a cult-favorite women’s workwear company that makes luxurious but functional clothes for busy women.
- 70% of their clients are repeat customers.
- The Foster Pant is their highest-earning style, and we got a chance to try them out. Not only are they extremely comfortable, they also have a concealed button that adjusts the hem, so you can wear them with heels or flats within seconds.
Women’s workwear is in a heyday of evolution.
One landmark company in the emerging movement is MM. LaFleur – a cult-favorite using functional and luxurious materials and delivering on the sort of understated elegance that head designer (and Zac Posen veteran) Miyako Nakamura is so adept at producing.
Recently, they sent us their Foster Pant to test. They’re machine-washable and made from a thick Italian-cotton blend that’s designed to strike a balance between stretch and structure. It’s a cigarette leg that feels fitted without crossing the line into too tight for the office. And, it’s got an inventive perk: a concealed button in the hem that allows you to adjust the length from high to low. The button is unobtrusive, and it’s a game-changer for petite women or those who want to switch from heels to flats without switching pants.
You can read our thoughts below, but overall, we loved them for their comfort, versatility, and their flattering yet professional design.
The Foster Pant is their first pant style, and for the second year in a row, it's also been the highest-earning style in the company - earning millions from a notoriously difficult demographic to please. Women's workwear is plagued by a phenomenon of fast fashion and trends that, understandably, see a high turnover rate. Instead of spending the amount of money projected as necessary to make more luxurious and better-fitting clothes for women overall, most retailers are happy to continue doing business as usual.
But what new workwear companies like M.M. LaFleur and Citizen's Mark are betting on is that women do not want fast fashion for work. They do not want trends. They want comfort, elegance, and professionalism to coincide, and they want their workwear to actually make their lives easier. They want the same aura of credibility as a really great suit creates, and they likely want to spend less time in a dressing room to find it.
This ethos has turned out well for the brand. Over 70% of M.M. LaFleur's customers are returning clients, thanks to the "Bento Box" experience. Instead of forcing busy, working women to come to their stores in order to realize how great their clothes are, M.M. LaFleur offers a comprehensive questionnaire to learn about you, assigns a stylist to your case who picks out four to six wardrobe staples they think you'll love, and then sends you a box of those items to try on in the comfort of your home. You can pack up what you don't want and schedule a UPS pick-up to grab it. They'll only charge you for what you keep, and it's not a subscription service.
Not only are they addressing a lapse in the market (comfortable, machine-washable, elegant workwear), but they're doing it with notable fanfare.
You can read our individual thoughts on the pants below, or shop them directly here.
The Foster Pant, MM. LaFleur, $195 currently comes in six colors: black, chocolate, dark navy, dark spruce, monsoon, russet, and saddle, and a variety of inclusive sizes.
Connie Chen, Insider Picks reporter
The Foster Pant, M.M. LaFleur, $195
Work pants are always a struggle to shop for because I want them to balance comfort and professionalism. Since I spend most of the day sitting down or walking around the office, comfort is what I yearn for the most, but is often the factor I end up having to compromise. The Foster Pant somehow manages to knock both comfort and structure out of the park.
I'm a big fan of stretch, which you wouldn't ordinarily associate with work pants, but the Foster Pant fits at all the right places while remaining crisp and sharp. The Monsoon gray is a stylish, versatile color that goes with anything, yet another reason these are now one of my go-to work pants.
Malarie Gokey, Insider Picks senior editor
The Foster Pant, M.M. LaFleur, $195
I used to avoid dress pants because I disliked ironing the easily wrinkled fabric and I was annoyed that I always had to hem them up. Then I tried M.M. La Fleur 's Foster Pant, which magically solved both of my problems.
These pants don't wrinkle easily because they stretch to fit your curves perfectly. Plus, the concealed button hem makes it absurdly easy to shorten the pants to the perfect length for my 5'2 frame. I wish every pair of pants had that ingenious hem!
I love the fit and look of the Foster pants so much I bought a special pair of heels to wear them with.
Mara Leighton, Insider Picks reporter
The Foster Pant, M.M. LaFleur, $195
I'm a pretty low maintenance person, but I have a long checklist for what I look for in workwear. I spend the majority of my life in it, so if I'm going to spend the money I want to feel comfortable, look tailored and professional, and find that the materials are elastic enough to maintain their shape even after repeated wears. If they're machine-washable and wrinkle-resistant, then they earn a place of honor.
M.M. LaFleur makes a lot of my favorite workwear because they understand how to combine comfort and elegance so remarkably well. The Foster Pants hit all my must-haves.
The cigarette pant shape is fitted but appropriate. The thick Italian-cotton blend is comfortable and has a lot of give, but also provides structure. And they're machine-washable.
I'm 5'7, so the concealed button wasn't a major draw for me, but I appreciate the pension for innovation (which also shows up in the unique seam design in the back of the pants, an understated but nonetheless flattering addition).
My advice would be if you're not sure about sizing to try a size down. I'm a pretty solid 4 (though recently things have been feeling looser in general), and I'm comfortable in my pair of 4 Fosters, but would probably have wanted to try the 2 to gauge.
Ellen Hoffman: Insider Picks senior editor
The Foster Pant, M.M. LaFleur, $195
Every woman needs a go-to pair of black work pants, and the Foster Pants are now mine for their surprising comfort and flattering look. M.M.LaFleur claims in the product description for these pants that they've "cracked the comfort code," and as far as I'm concerned, they have. The pants are made of a thick Italian-cotton blend that is at once stretchy and structured - holding me in in all the right places.
As a petite woman, I especially appreciate the adjustable hem that lets me shorten the pants to the perfect ankle length for my 5'3" frame. Figuring out how to switch the length of the pants took me a minute, but there's an instructional video on M.M.LaFleur's Instagram that anyone having trouble with it can refer to for help.
