A pocket is a small thing to build a company around. Until you need one. Imagine arriving at a meeting with a phone, a pen and nowhere sensible to put either. Your jacket looks ready for business. You are still juggling. Argent’s proposition begins in that gap between appearing prepared and being equipped.
- Women’s tailoring with interior pockets and cuffs that keep pushed-up sleeves in place.
- Premium prices: the navy Single Button Blazer is listed at $395.
- Online shopping, in-person styling and a community built around women’s careers.
Sali Christeson spent roughly a decade in finance and technology before launching the brand in 2016. She had encountered the problem as a customer: clothes that asked working women to negotiate between looking interesting and moving comfortably. Founding designer Eleanor Turner brought the other half of the equation. Business frustration acquired a pattern, a fabric and a way to be worn.
Starting required money as well as conviction. On the Nice Talk podcast, Christeson described being prepared to lose $150,000 to launch her business. That was her stated appetite for risk, rather than an audited startup bill. In February 2019, reporting put a Founders Fund-led investment at $4 million. Sewing a useful idea into inventory still required capital before a customer could try it on.
A pocket-sized proposition
The early product details were unusually literal. A launch-era interview described blazer pockets sized for phones, pens and lip balm, including interior mesh pockets through which a wearer could see a phone screen. This was tailoring attentive to the objects accompanying its customer. Even the humble lining had been given a job.
There is a useful distinction here. Fashion often sells an imagined life. Argent also considers the equipment of the existing one. A woman may want a dramatic silhouette, but she still has a train to catch and a device to carry. Practicality belongs in the same design conversation as the lapel.
Dress for the day you actually have
Consider the navy Single Button Blazer in Seasonless Wool. At $395, it occupies a premium corner of the wardrobe. The listed fabric is 98 percent wool and 2 percent elastane, sourced from Italy; the garment is made in Portugal and requires dry cleaning. The brand describes the lightweight wool as temperature-regulating and resistant to wrinkles and odor.
Its smart cuff is designed to keep sleeves in place when pushed up. Interior pocketing handles smaller possessions. Those are claims a shopper can examine in a fitting room. Put the phone inside. Lift an arm. Sit down. The purchase starts to become a practical assessment of how the jacket behaves.
The customer is a woman who wants tailoring with personality and enough utility for an ordinary working day. Executives and public figures supply visible examples, but the underlying situations are familiar: interviews, presentations, travel and dinner after work. Argent sells trousers, tops and dresses alongside blazers, allowing a shopper to assemble separates rather than commit every outfit to a matching suit.
Against shopping alternatives such as Theory, M.M.LaFleur, Ann Taylor or J.Crew, Argent’s particular pitch combines expressive color, tailoring and functional details. The comparison is about where a customer might shop. It does not establish that any one brand fits every body, budget or office better.
When the office disappeared
A company can understand its customer and still be vulnerable to her calendar. When offices emptied during the pandemic, demand for Argent’s workwear fell. Christeson told Modern Retail that the business recorded losses in 2020 and 2021. Showrooms closed; the immediate task became cutting back and surviving.
This exposes the risk in a persuasive product story. If a garment is associated closely with an occasion, losing that occasion threatens the business behind it. Better pockets cannot reopen an office. Argent’s later return to growth included reopening its Soho store and pursuing wholesale through Nordstrom, rather than relying on one route to the customer.
“I love stores.”Sali Christeson, speaking to Modern Retail in 2023
A pink suit with a public life
Meanwhile, the suit found another occasion. Argent’s partnership with Supermajority connected hot-pink tailoring to women’s political participation. According to the partners’ 2022 announcement, the 2020 pink suit sold out within 24 hours. A garment intended to help a woman be seen at work had become something women could wear to be seen together.
The 2022 Voting Suits You campaign included a Soho pop-up, voter registration and education, and support from When We All Vote. The blazer was priced at $295 and the trousers at $195, with proceeds benefiting Supermajority’s voter education. Those historical prices also show why today’s core blazer should not be confused with the campaign edition.
Color became a recognizable part of the business. In an April 2026 interview, Christeson said, “Customer reception informed where we’ve taken [the brand].” That is a modest but consequential explanation: response from buyers helped steer the assortment toward brighter offerings. By its tenth anniversary, Argent was presenting a ten-piece capsule in magenta.
The fitting room earns its keep
The business began online, but physical selling appeared early. Argent took clothes into WeWork locations, meeting freelancers, entrepreneurs and startup employees where they already gathered. The setting explained the product before a salesperson needed to. It also gave women a chance to handle clothes that photographs could only describe.
Today, complimentary styling appointments add help with fit and outfit decisions. Work Friends, the brand’s editorial and podcast project, puts women’s careers alongside the clothes. Partnerships extend the wardrobe too: a three-piece footwear capsule with Margaux launched in May 2025. Rather than invent every category itself, Argent can work with someone whose expertise starts where its own tailoring ends.
Try the pocket before the pitch
The practical lesson is available to any founder: examine the small inconveniences your customer repeats, then make the improvement easy to demonstrate. For shoppers, that means testing fit, movement and storage before accepting the promise of confidence. Check the particular garment’s size availability and care instructions. A premium, dry-clean-only jacket is a poor bargain if it stays in the closet.
Argent’s appeal depends on having occasions for tailoring and wanting its particular expression of it. A suit cannot correct unequal pay or supply professional authority by itself. It can make getting dressed easier and carrying a phone less absurd. That is a concrete place for a clothing company to begin.