We have been making this pull-on pant for nearly eight years. It has always been fantastic. Four years ago I wrote about it, and after a quick re-read (well... not so quick… I told a very long story at the end… so, okay, after a long re-read,) I am even more convinced. You really need these. I promise. If you have a pair of Fayes in your closet already, pull them out and congratulate yourself on being smart enough to scoop up this kind of pant long before it was such a trend. Early adopter. Because I will say, they don't look like much on the shelf. The hanger appeal is pretty close to zero. Our sales staff has said “just trust me on these” more times than we can count over the years. Putting a pair in each dressing room would be real customer service. But what a difference a few years can make! Because right now, the pull of the pull-on pant is unavoidable. Or maybe I should say the PUSH of the pull-on. You may even have grown tired of them… I see ads for a stretchy, cropped, elastic-waist pant every time I open Instagram. Every line is making their own riff. Bring it on. The more the merrier. This genre of pant is so useful that I truly believe that!
I wrote about the connection between athletic wear and Azzedine Alaïa on the last go-round, but I am looking at it with fresh eyes today. Though the ease of this pant is minimal and modern to the nth degree… I see it now as I remember my own mother dressing in the 60s. Her pants were probably not quite as comfortable as the Faye — there was a true waistband and a side zipper to be sure — but the sleek ease of her bottom half was made for movement. She looked just like Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Apparently Mary Tyler Moore insisted on wearing pants to play the stay-at-home housewife. At the time, it was a pretty bold statement: “I had Laura wear pants, because I said, ‘Women don't wear full-skirted dresses to vacuum in.’”
She was working! And we all wanted to look like her. Today, I absolutely would, like Laura, vacuum, run to the grocery, have a full day at work, wear them out to dinner, bend down and pick up a toddler (I wish). But most of all, the things that these pants are really great for… is travel. Just ask my friend Yolanda of YOLO Journal.
She is crazy for the original ponte knit in both navy and black, and very kindly went on the record saying so. She should know about go-anywhere pants, because she has worn them literally ALL over the world. I get dizzy thinking of it. What I would give to have been to half the places her Fayes have. They need their own passport stamps. If you don't believe me, just have a scroll through her Instagram. She will stand by the fact that they do not stretch out due to some miraculous qualities of the knit, and can be thrown in the washing machine to boot. Somehow, they are both sturdy AND light. (I wear them year-round as does she.) They flatter AND are practical. She is on the go, but she looks amazing at every whistle stop. There is a real power in knowing what works for you and leaning into it, and Yolanda is as pick-and-stick as anyone I know. She hasn’t changed her chic pixie hairstyle since she was probably 24… and it takes just as much time to fix in the morning as pulling on her Faye pants. She has work to do as well!
And if you need more on the easy-does-it front, you can talk to my daughters Louisa and Harriet. With their disability, they truly have a terrible time getting dressed. They use walkers and wheelchairs to get around and putting on a proper pair of jeans can be a fifteen-minute ordeal. In the years since their diagnosis, the concept of "adaptive clothing" has become almost mainstream thanks to a bunch of major retailers hopping on board and lending visibility beyond the disability world. (Or maybe I'm just more attuned to it.) Which is amazing. This is not that… but it kind of is that. Let's call it lowercase-a-adaptive. A pull-on pant that helps them look pulled together is important to all of us. My own hands and legs work just fine, but many days I can relate to them in that I just want it to be easy. That is the pull of the pull-on.
There is a photo of Faye Dunaway on my very first mood board in the Atlanta store. A still from the movie The Thomas Crown Affair, where she looks chic in white jeans and a turtleneck on the beach lounging next to Steve McQueen. They may not be the same stretchy, pull-on style of her namesake (coincidence!) pant, but the all-American ease of her look throughout the whole movie feels the same. Michael Kors could have been the costume designer… he would have been all of nine years old that year, and let me tell you, he absolutely could have done it! The twill ones are our spring/summer riff on Faye. The fabric feels fantastic: soft like a stretch denim, but substantial enough to hold you in. And they have that same clean, minimal, flat elastic waistband that just pulls right up. Just as travel-friendly as Yolanda's ponte of course… maybe your rental house in the Hamptons has a washing machine.
Clearly there was a bit more to say about the Faye — even after the admittedly long-winded writing of that 2020 post. Great things don’t go out of style... these pants are a dream and in them, I feel exactly the way I want to feel. Chic and ready for action.
