“We’ve known all along that, in many ways, sneakers are the future of footwear,” Alison Melville, Everlane’s general manager of footwear and accessories, tells Glamour. “As apparel and culture [become more casual], footwear is going right along with it. It was less that we were resisting [adding a sneaker] and more that we wanted to take our time and do it right.”
A big concern for the Everlane team was, in a time when everyone has their version of an everyday sneaker, creating something that stood out in the market and could still live in a closet for years. “Striking a balance between those two things is a really big challenge,” she says. “That’s why it took us more than two years.”
The goal was to design something that “had broad appeal across gender, across ages, across all sorts of demographics, while also being recognizable and distinctive.” The result—which is being announced today and released on April 25—is a unisex style called the Trainer. It’ll be available in seven different colors and retail for $98. Aesthetically, it reads like a cooler interpretation of the inescapable “dad sneaker” trend. And though there’s no explicit branding on it, there’s one Everlane hallmark woven into the design: a triangle quarter panel at the top of the shoe.
“We designed it with the recognition that it’s not an athletic shoe,” explains Melville. “Most people wear sneakers for nonathletic reasons, and we wanted to design a sneaker that had that truly versatile end use in mind. We want to produce timeless classics that are basic and that last you a long time, from both a quality and a trend perspective. They’re not splash-in-the-pan fashion items. What we’ve learned across [footwear]—whether it’s the Day Glove or the Day Heel or the Day Boot—is that when you can drill down to the essentialness of a product and deliver on it, you’ll find detailing that sets it apart.”
There was also the environmental impact to consider. As a company, Everlane is committed to reducing waste and to increase transparency in the fashion industry. (Last year it pledged to remove all virgin plastic from its supply chain by 2021.) When it came time to build something that has as many components as a sneaker, the brand wanted to ensure everything from the sole to the laces was aligned with that mission—and also to continue educating customers.
That’s why Everlane’s doing this launch a little differently: Instead of simply adding the Trainer to its existing footwear section, it’s creating a brand-new label, Tread by Everlane. “We wanted to make sure that the sneaker had its own brand platform where we could talk about this message, of reducing the burden of plastic,” says Melville. They’ll also continue talking about carbon offsetting and reducing water usage. “Those conversations are quite nuanced, in terms of sustainability,” she adds. The new label will “make sure that we have the platform to tell the whole story.”
With Tread by Everlane, the brand is hoping to work toward creating “the world’s lowest-impact sneakers.” Melville is tight-lipped about what other styles might be coming but assures that the team is “focused on the Trainer for the foreseeable future.”
Ahead, shop Everlane‘s long-anticipated foray into sneakers.
Anyone due for a basics overhaul knows that Everlane is the best place to start. The direct-to-consumer brand carries just about every wardrobe essential—the white T-shirt, the relaxed jean, the casual flat—all made with a commitment to ethical production and sustainable materials. With trend-proof pieces always in stock, Everlane sales are rare. But when they happen, they’re good.
Everlane’s best-known sale is its “Choose What You Pay” event. The brand will curate items it overstocked and offer them for a reduced price; shoppers have three options to choose from, ranging from 15 to 50 percent off, and pick how much they want to spend. Everlane has said that this model is all part of its mission to promote radically transparent shopping: “Part of it was this opportunity to explain to the customer what the markup meant, and then the opportunity to give the customer a choice,” CEO Michael Presyman explained to BuzzFeed. When you shop “Choose What You Pay,” you know you’re getting your money’s worth. More important, you’re getting pieces that will always have a home in your closet, for a great price.
We narrowed down the 15 Everlane items you should buy first at its “Choose What You Pay.” Shop them all, ahead.
Angelina Jolie‘s most talked-about fashion moments often involve the red carpet. (She did singlehandedly reinvent the leg-slit gown, after all.) But you shouldn’t be sleeping on her off-duty style. The actress is always incorporating a range of polished, accessible items into her wardrobe—including pieces from a brand favored by Meghan Markle and Amal Clooney.
Over the weekend, Jolie was photographed while shopping in Los Angeles with her daughter, Vivian. According to Hollywood Life* reports, she visited a flower market, wearing a casual combination of all your favorite essentials: trench coat, jeans, ballet flats, and aviator sunglasses.
JOGA, JOLA, ENAV
Jolie’s look was a truly quintessential spring outfit. The best part, though? The credits include a mix of high and low, many of which are still shoppable.
Only two pieces have been ID’d so far—her trench and her sunglasses. The former is the Drape Trench Coat from ethical fashion brand Everlane. It currently retails for $138, and is one of the best-reviewed items on the website website.
As it turns out, Jolie is a longtime Everlane fan: She’s been seen carrying its Petra Tote, which is no longer sold, for several years; and has been spotted wearing the brand’s editor heels for press junkets and weekend errands, as well as its modern loafers to the airport.
But back to this most recent high/low moment: The “high” of Jolie’s outfit came from her sleek sunnies. The frames are from Dior and retail for $350.
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 waitlist soon follow. (When Everlane debuted denim with three styles in 2017, there was a 45,478-person waitlist…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, grey, 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.
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 towards 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 4-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 everyday.” The Work Pant is also cheaper than the brand’s most popular jeans, its $68 mid-rise 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 hypesurroundingEverlane’sWorkPant 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 cafes (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”-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 schvitzing, 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 a 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.
The many, many Everlane customers that 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.
Everlane is a fashion brand driven by values. Every item is ethically sourced, and, through its 100% Human collection, it has raised over $500,000 for organizations like the ACLU, Equality Now, and The Human Rights Campaign. Now it’s using its platform to promote activism and activists through a new video series—and it’s kicking it off with none other than living legend Gloria Steinem.
On May 7 Everlane debuts Human Heroes, which showcases leaders who “have dedicated their lives to empowering their communities and making a difference” through filmed interviews. The first episode focuses on Steinem, with her talking to the brand about how the women’s movement has evolved, what she sees in the next generation, and her perfect response to people who call her something not-too-kind.
Check out the first episode in full.
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“Defending human rights has been core to our mission of Radical Transparency from the very beginning,” Alex Spunt, head of creative at Everlane, tells Glamour. “The Human Heroes series is our way of highlighting individuals who fight for those rights every single day—and Gloria Steinem is the ultimate Human Hero. For over 50 years she’s fought on behalf of disempowered and disenfranchised women all over the globe and even now, at 84 years old, she still uses her voice to educate and inspire every day.”
In the inaugural Human Heroes clip, Steinem explains that, even as the women’s movement has evolved, one tenet remains true: “Feminism includes all women, or it’s not feminism.” She also talks about how seeing “legions of young feminists out there” has been inspiring to her: “I think I can bring hope to [young feminists] because I remember when it was worse, and they bring anger and energy to me, so it’s a great trade,” Steinem says, before adding that she doesn’t want to offer them advice—rather, she prefers to listen to their needs, then ask how she can help. “We’re better together, right?”
Spunt says that Everlane will continue to work on campaigns like 100% Human to fund-raise for organizations it supports, as well as grow the Human Heroes series as a way to spotlight activists at every level. “As Gloria points out in the video, we’re seeing more activism today than we ever have—and she would know,” she explains. “I think we’re going to see this engagement continue. The hope is that people will demand higher standards from more and more industries, including fashion. We’ll certainly continue to hold ourselves accountable, and stand up for our values and beliefs however we can.”
