Susan Woo and Karen Drexler met as many mom friends do. In 2021, when their daughters were in the same part-time preschool in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, they ran into each other at pickup.
As their young children became friends, so too did the women. "Our relationship as moms was the breeding ground for us as work wives," Ms. Woo, 42, said on a video call from her apartment in Brooklyn this month.
"We realized we were quite similar in the way we parent," Ms. Drexler, 48, added on the same call, which she joined from her home in Tribeca.
The mothers also shared an upbringing by immigrant parents and backgrounds in fashion. Ms. Woo, who was raised on Long Island by "entrepreneurial" Korean parents and studied fashion and business at Cornell, had interned at Louis Vuitton and Derek Lam. She then worked in marketing and sales at Chanel before starting an eponymous line in 2009, which shuttered in 2015.
After consulting for a year, she paused to raise her children -- she and her husband, Jeff Mayer, who works in hotel finance, had a son named Jackson in 2016 -- before returning to Derek Lam in 2022 for about a year as director of product development. Their daughter Evan was born in 2018.
Ms. Drexler, who grew up with "very traditional" Chinese parents in St. Catharines, Ontario, holds a degree in psychology and economics from the University of Toronto. She started out as an assistant at the Canadian fashion and lifestyle boutique TNT ("I lied to by mom and said it was a job in mutual funds"), and recalled a pivotal moment around 2003 when she was invited to join TNT's owner, Arie Assaraf, at a Theory appointment in New York.
She said that decisions about which pieces to order were "dissected like an English essay," which left her "completely inspired." Ms. Drexler joined TNT's buying team soon after and stayed for five years.
In 2011, she met Alex Drexler, the son of the former J. Crew and Gap chief executive Mickey Drexler, and worked with him to create the men's and women's line, Alex Mill, which was founded in 2012. The two married in 2017, and she left the company in 2018, shortly before Frankie's birth.
A Line Is Also Born
As their daughters' transition to kindergarten neared, Ms. Woo and Ms. Drexler said they found themselves thinking beyond motherhood. They discussed a need for hardworking clothes that would enable women to easily achieve polished outcomes -- a wardrobe that can get you through drop-offs, errands, lunches with friends and meetings. Ms. Woo said they wondered, "What is that wardrobe that expands?"
Mr. Drexler, 47, with his know-how for growing a fashion brand, joined their conversation, and "little seeds" were planted during play dates between the two families, Ms. Woo said. One day, after a particularly epic play date in fall 2023, Ms. Drexler said she turned to her husband and said, "'Wait, are we doing something together?'"
In February, the three industry veterans pooled their skill sets -- design for Ms. Woo, sales and merchandising for Ms. Drexler, start-up know-how for Mr. Drexler -- and created the women's wear line Arlo Mott. (Arlo was a name the Drexlers had considered for their daughter; Mott is a reference to Mott Street, the historic location of many of Chinatown's garment shops and where "you'd go for exciting, emerging talent," Ms. Woo said.)
Together, the women designed what they said they typically wish to wear -- timeless wardrobe staples made from such top-drawer fabrics as Portuguese poplin, Japanese twill, Italian terry cloth and jersey from Los Angeles, in stable colors like black, navy, chalk, cinnamon and olive green. The pieces -- all manufactured in the city's garment district, except for the sweaters, which are made in China -- often feature mom-friendly big pockets.
"There's nothing new here," Ms. Woo said. "There's pants, there's shirts." The idea is to offer clothing that can "make you feel put together" across a highly varied and even over-scheduled day, she said, because "the modern woman is so busy. Our parents were not this busy!"
"You don't have time to overthink," Ms. Drexler added. "If I have five extra minutes, I take it in the shower."
'The Really, Really Good Brands Solve a Problem'
"I always really believed in their vision," Mr. Drexler said. "But I knew we were on to something when my dad said that it was really good. I knew we had a home run when my mom and my sister wanted to wear it."
"We want to be the clothing you wear a lot," Ms. Woo said.
"We try it on and hop and skip in it," Ms. Drexler said. "We want you to feel good doing whatever you are doing."
Laura Vinroot Poole, who carries the line at Capitol, her boutique with locations in Charlotte, N.C., and Santa Monica, Calif., said, "The really, really good brands solve a problem." Arlo Mott's first season has almost sold out in her stores. "One of the hardest nuts to crack has always been these women who have left the work force -- or temporarily left -- to have children," she said. "They had pretty high-powered jobs, and knew how to dress for that, but now they're doing car pool or doing car pool between Zooms."
Kendle Windham, the director of buying and operations of the Austin boutique Valentines, wrote in a text, that Arlo Mott "has really spoken to our clientele." Arlo Mott's price point, generally south of $500, is "virtually impossible to find in today's market," she added.
What the Future Holds
The brand, which is also carried by the boutiques TNT, Tootsies in Austin and Max Fashion in Denver, Boulder, Aspen and Vail, will launch its web shop on Sept. 15 and its spring 2026 collection by appointment at the Drexlers' home in Tribeca during New York Fashion Week, which is currently underway and ends on Tuesday.
With a laugh, Ms. Drexler noted that their living room does double duty as Arlo Mott's showroom. It is where she and Ms. Woo keep their mood board and take fit meetings. "The girls have seen us go through the whole process," and they understand that fashion is fun but also hard, she said.
This summer, Ms. Drexler's and Ms. Woo's daughters, now 6, chose to go to fashion summer camp together. "They're growing up alongside our brand," said Ms. Woo, whose daughter, Evan, likes to color photo copies of her mom's sketches.
Ms. Woo remembered Evan's response upon the debut of their first collection this February: "She said, 'Oh Mama, I'm so proud of you.' You say it so often to your children, when you hear your child say it to you -- having suffered through much mom guilt -- you feel like you've done something right."
The two women noted that they protect their personal relationship aside from their professional one. When starting Arlo Mott -- "our baby together" -- Ms. Woo said they had to ask themselves, "'If this doesn't go well, are we still mom friends?'"
The answer is yes. "We have very open conversations," Ms. Drexler said. "That friendship is more important than the clothes."