Le Bon Shoppe Arc Pant
a four star weekend problem solver
This review is for the fashion blog, One Star Reviews. One Star Reviews “hopes to heal the disillusioned among us who hope that a review can help us know whether something is actually worth our hard-earned dollars.” One Star Reviews is run by Kelly Williams of Midimalist, a fantastic fashion blog with a thriving community on Substack. Thanks for having me, Kelly!
I enjoy getting dressed so much for work because I get a lot of external validation from my students (you have no idea what a compliment from a 13-year-old means to me!) and colleagues. I have a loose formula for what I wear throughout the week:
Mondays: “nice” jeans + top
Tuesdays: trousers + top
Wednesdays: overalls or jumpsuit
Thursday: skirt/dress + tights or trousers + top
Friday: casual
For the longest time, weekends had me stumped. It doesn’t make sense for me to wear trousers on the weekend. I work out on Saturday and Sunday morning, and then I’m with my four-year-old the rest of the day. Four years in, I still “sleep when the baby sleeps,” meaning I need to feel comfortable enough for lazy couch time and look nice enough to attend kid birthday parties, drop into PDX cafes, or wherever the weekend takes me. Try as I might, I will never be a person who wears leggings or sweatpants comfortably outside my home. Enter: the Le Bon Shoppe Arc pants.
My sister owned these pants first, but she has a very narrow waist, and actually ended up adding a drawstring to the pants to make them tighter on her. I tried on her altered pair in denim, and they absolutely did not work for me. The waist was way too tight. This did not stop me from asking her about them every single time she wore them.
Finally, after an afternoon of birthday shopping in early November, I asked her about the pants (again), and she said I should just go try on an unaltered pair in the next size up. Le Bon Shoppe does a great job of wholesaling to smaller boutiques, so I stopped by The Yo Store in Portland and was able to try on a medium. They were loose in the waist, but I really liked the silhouette. The Yo Store didn’t have a small, so I ended up ordering a pair from Lisa Says Gah. I used a 10% off discount code and got free shipping, so they were $112.50. Once I got up to six wears, I ended up ordering a leopard print pair from the Sunchild boutique (based in Houston, TX). I’m now up to eleven wears with the black canvas pair and three wears with the leopard pair.
Pros:
Elastic waist! This is what makes them a weekend pant, but I can easily dress them up enough for work.
Loose, relevant shape. I have yet to find a pair of barrel leg jeans that suit me, but these pants allow me to experiment with the trend.
Fun range of colors and prints. These appear to change up every season, and if you poke around online, you can find past offerings. Here’s what Le Bon Shoppe is current offering:
Cons:
Size range. These pants run only from Small to Large, which in 2025 is pretty shameful.
The elastic waist was tight on me at first, but has loosened comfortably over time.
Variation in length. Part of what I liked about my original black pair is the perfect crop length on me (I’m 5’3”). The leopard pair is slightly longer, which was disappointing to me, but not enough to return them!
Similar styles:
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I have these in the cream color and love them!
Unrelated to the VAST majority of this letter, but onesie wednesday is ALWAYS a good idea (& often saves me from the dreaded mid-week slump with a much needed fun outfit cheer up)