Selling 'Life-Changing Pants' Changed My Life

I'M WEARING THE life-changing pants now, curled up in a chair.

- CHLOÉ CALDWELL

Writers can work in their pajamas, but I don't like to. I stay in them through the late morning, then it's pants-and-a-little-makeup time. It cues my brain that I am at work.

The pants are from Loup, a Brooklyn-based clothing brand with stores in Manhattan and Hudson, where I began working because I wanted extra money, to work retail again, and to be in the world and off my computer. It was winter when I took the walk through Hudson that brought me to them. When I reached the Loup store, I saw the chalkboard outside reading LIFE-CHANGING PANTS. There was also a HELP WANTED sign in the window. I'd been in the depths of unexplained infertility for over a year. I wanted my life to change.

A few days later, I was hired after a conversation with Danielle Ribner, the designer and owner. I got my first pair of the pants on my first day, part of the benefit of working there. Once I put them on, I never wanted to take them off.