CFDA’s Female Founders Series highlights extraordinary female entrepreneurs who are changing the fashion landscape. We kicked off the series on Monday with MM.LaFleur co-founders Sarah LaFleur and Miyako Nakamura.

The vertically integrated womenswear brand provides a complete wardrobe and personal-styling for the busy professional woman. With the core belief of taking the work out of dressing for work, LaFleur and Nakamura are creating a wardrobe for women by listening to the needs of their customer.

“Our customer wants someone to do the work for them. They want to look stylish but aren’t interested in what’s on the runway,” LaFleur, the company’s CEO, in conversation with Lauren Sherman of The Business of Fashion.

The unique business model takes most of that stress and time out of the shopping experience. After a customer completes a questionnaire about her preferences, dislikes, and body shape, she receives a personalized box of garments and has the opportunity to keep what she loves and return the rest. If the customer wants a more hands-on experience, she can set up an appointment in one of MM.LaFleur’s showrooms, where a personal stylist has pre-selected items for her based on her survey responses.

Getting to know and understand their customers is invaluable to their design process. Nakamura, who is head of design, has experience from high-end fashion houses where, as she put it, “we had a definition of who our customer was, but we never actually knew.”  Collections were designed, then bought by a retailer, and then sold to a customer. “Now,” she said, “I’m working from the bottom up, listening to the client’s needs and designing for what she wants.”

So how did the two amass this huge customer base? Not only has the company been collecting information on customers since they launched in 2014, but they also put a focus on the face-to-face experience.

When MM.LaFleur first launched, LaFleur and Nakamura  set up a small showroom in SoHo House where they invited customers to try on the collection. Nakamura says that being able to watch her customer try on a pair of pants, and hear directly from her what felt great and what didn’t, was was an incredible learning experience that inevitably informed her design and constructions decisions. These intimate events “might not be the most profitable business opportunities, but they were incredibly valuable to our product development,” LaFleur said.

There is no slowing down for the MM.LaFleur executives. Nakamura was excited to share that they just launched footwear. As she put it, “We want to expand into categories where we feel like there is something missing for their customer in the market, where we could do better.”

What can we expect next? There was a hint it might be beauty, health and wellness but whatever it may be, LaFleur and Nakamura will ensure it is what their woman wants!