I Tested the Viral ‘Work Pants’ That Had a 12,000-Person Waiting List

Everlane, the beloved direct-to-consumer retailer that underscores its radical transparency with pricing and manufacturing, tends to know precisely which polished basics its loyal customers are (or soon will be) hankering for: When the seven-year-old e-comm-focused brand launches a new product, quick sell-outs and wait list soon follow. (When Everlane debuted denim with three styles in 2017, there was a 45,478-person wait list…on launch day.) Its Work Pant, unveiled at the beginning of 2018, is no exception.

On January 25 Everlane rolled out the $50 trousers (traditional retail price: $100) in regular and ankle lengths, in a few muted colors, like navy, gray, and dark green. Just one day later the humble, pretty plain office-apropos pants were out of stock and had racked up a pretty insane wait list—12,000 people deep. And while restocks usually happen within a few weeks, the Work Pant took four full months to slowly trickle back to its website. It reappeared in late May.

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The initial design objective was “to create a slim pant that was comfortable and looked tailored enough to wear to work,” explains Kelli Dugan, Everlane’s head of merchandising. The design team sampled two different fabrics and spent over a year working toward the best possible fit, she explains, and even focus-grouped the style before producing it. “We held a 30-person fit clinic to understand how the pant fit on different sizes and shapes,” she says. “The result was a pant made with a comfortable four-way stretch with a flattering high waist, side zip, and a leg-lengthening back seam detail.”

Lots of Everlane launches grab attention—why was this particular one so colossally popular? “I think our customer really saw the versatility and high value of a simple, clean work pant at a $50 price point,” Dugan says. “It’s something they can feel comfortable and polished wearing every day.” The Work Pant is also cheaper than the brand’s most popular jeans, its $68 midrise skinny ankle style and its $78 kick crop version. It’s also super flexible: “We really wanted a fabric that had a good amount of stretch, but had enough weight to hold you in in all the right places, so we went with a four-way stretch cotton,” according to Dugan. “The fabric gives the pant a matte, clean finish, which feels sleek enough for work.”

The Work Pant has been constantly in low stock across colors and sizes over the past two months, with occasional inventory refreshes. At its New York City location, a salesperson shared that the product has consistently been one of the store’s best-selling items, even in the middle of a seemingly extra-humid summer. It’s also had a longer lag time between its debut and regularly programmed restocks, which the brand attributes to not realizing just how big a hit it’d created. “We did not anticipate the crazy demand for the pant and had to work with the factory very closely on this restock,” Dugan explains. Also, “the Work Pant is actually made at the same factory as our popular Wide Leg Crop, so we had to balance out production of both to make sure we had enough as we enter fall,” she adds, nodding to the manufacturing transparency the company touts.

The hype surrounding Everlane’s Work Pant is real. Does it live up to it, though? In a bid to find out, I test-drove a pair to see if I could indeed be wowed by a generally unremarkable closet standard.

To note, I work either from home and cafés (leggings, sports bras, and even my very fancy bathrobe from indie Brooklyn label, Vestment, are acceptable at both) or in office environments at fashion publications, where dress codes are nonexistent and creative and/or incredibly casual. When I finally got to wear-testing, it was the swampiest week in July: The air thick with humidity, where you walk around with a sweat sheen (glow) on your face and constant fantasize of strong AC blasts or dips in any body of cool water—pretty much the opposite of prime work-pant-wearing season.

The ankle length of the Work Pant might look like a regular inseam, grazing the tops of the feet, if you don’t have very long legs, as was the case for me. They look pretty cute, albeit more casual, if you cuff them once, though. The pant’s silhouette is intended to be equal parts work-appropriate and comfortable, with “a slim, tapered fit instead of a skintight skinny,” Dugan says, while the high rise “holds you in, nips your waist at the perfect point, and features a hidden elastic band for a smooth finish.” That 1.5-inch-width elastic band is a seriously clutch touch: It hugs you all the way around at belly button-level, like a pair of leggings with moderate compression, instead of a stiff, stretch-free, unforgiving sewn-in waistband that might leave angry red marks in its wake. Just remember that even if they feel a bit like performance-wear that resists shvitzing, they’re not: The Work Pant will indeed show spills, even (temporarily) of water, or sweat stains. Yes, that goes for the black version too. There’s also a side zipper, “for a modern touch,” Dugan explains—it’s nice, sturdy with an attractive matte finish.

Interestingly, the pants look a lot more conference-room-bound from the back than the front. Why? The lack of a separate waistband, centered zip fly, or pockets makes them look more like leggings from the front, so I wouldn’t recommend wearing these with a cropped shirt, or with a top tucked in, either. (There are no pockets whatsoever, including on the butt; though it’s nice to not have the bunched-up bulkiness, it’s useful to have at least one secure spot to tuck in, say, a credit card or phone when needed, so a slim pocket somewhere would be useful.) By contrast, there’s a sleek back-seam detail resembling a crisp crease that’s meant to lengthen the legs, per Dugan: It’s a chic detail, subtle but effective at really making it clear that these aren’t, in fact, leggings.

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The many, many Everlane customers who own the Work Pant have shared lots of insights—378 reviews at press time, to be exact. The brand’s design team apparently does parse through all those one- to five-star ratings (current average rating: 4.43 stars), and even makes tweaks accordingly. “We read all of our customer reviews as well as all return comments to make sure we are making improvements based on customer feedback: We pull this data weekly and make fit and product adjustments accordingly,” Dugan says. “Based on feedback from the $50 Work Pant, we actually opened up the waist very slightly for the latest restock.”

Currently, a handful of sizes in each color are available, in both ankle and regular lengths, with certain size-color combos whittled down to just three or four pairs inventory-wise. Many sizes slated for restock on August 22. Frankly, the Work Pant isn’t going to fully replace my go-to black jeans anytime soon—I do appreciate a few pockets in my life, and I think the waistband, though tweaked slightly from version 1.0 to version 2.0, could be made even comfier in a future iteration—but it certainly looks and feels more expensive than its $50 price tag, and it’s significantly less constricting and sad-looking as plain, work-worthy pants tend to be. And anything that simplifies getting dressed for work, especially at this price point, is at least worth a try.

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