Redefining the rules of ‘mom style’

A fresh newsletter from Blackbird Spyplane landed this autumn. Fashion’s most wise and witty tastemaker had written a guide to “cool mom style”, talking to newish mums. As a newish mum myself, the words reverberated through my inbox.

Among the pieces worn by the likes of designer Zoe Latta, designer Ellen Van Dusen and writer Natalie So were Pro Force martial arts pants and Marimekko-brights, Marni clogs and oversized yellow leather jackets. Gone were the cosy pumps and chunky practical boots I saw in the playground. Instead? Cool trainers that can go for miles, at pace, or be slipped on if your hands are full – Salomon “Snowclog Mid” sneakers, Nike Air Rifts, Asics Gel-Kayano 14s.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to rejoice at these women who didn’t see it as a vanity to (still) care about expressing themselves via their style, even as their babies and young children shotputted 10,000 demands in their direction – and society’s expectations for maternal self-sacrifice bore down. Changed bodies, changed priorities and forced hands led to roadbumps but sometimes they also led to less preciousness – more of a carpe diem approach to style.

I’m not saying becoming a mother made me suddenly dress better. Definitely not. Since having my kid four years ago, beyond those early months of feeling at home in dungarees and baggy men’s shirts, I have often struggled with dressing in a way that has matched who this new person feels like. Not only do old waistbands feel too tight, old aesthetics do, too. It’s hard to pinpoint.

Now, after the survival mode of early parenthood, with its cluster feeds, euphoria and chaos, what to clothe the new me in became an interesting side project to the main job of raising a child. And I’m not alone in finding that motherhood sparked something – more “Yolo” – when it comes to what I wear, along with a fresh levity and a desire to dress up more. Plus, there’s a defiance in the ways I now realise I can dress, which I once thought would feel out of reach the moment the baby hit the bassinet. Blame internalised misogyny, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that motherhood was not a one-way street to LK Bennett – instead, it made even dressing in old grooves feel new. Leaning into earlier “tomboyish” styles seemed pleasingly recalcitrant; getting dressed started to feel fun in unexpected directions. Except on the days when insecurities about my body win, I now for the most part enjoy thinking more about what I’m going to wear, finding a pleasure in it that I had lost.

For me, “new mum style” means playing around, not suddenly “dressing your age”; it means shunning ideas of “appropriateness” and letting the newness of, well, everything do some talking. Past generations likely did lose more of themselves. But what surely feels different now, is that “mum style”, and not just the Shirley Hughes kind, great as it is, is being given airtime – and celebrated.

Rose Byrne’s demure mum style in Platonic. Photograph: Katrina Marcinowski/Apple TV

Motherhood is a loaded time to dress: tabloids lambast “slovenly” school-run mums and so-called “slummy mummies”. But this isn’t another stick for women to beat themselves with. It’s a broadening, a relaxing – and there will always be space for those who legitimately don’t care. But for as long as I can remember, new mum style meant meh blazers with silk scarves, like the mother in Home Alone or, more recently, the linen shirts, chinos and demure polka dots of Rose Bryne’s character in Platonic, who is brilliantly not demure. Or Lululemon leggings and puffy jackets.

Historically in the popular imagination, motherhood has been remarkable for the ways in which it’s been seen to be detrimental to a woman: her looks, pelvic floor, wit, wardrobe. But here in this Blackbird Spyplane newsletter was rare emphasis on the interesting and rich ways motherhood can influence style, for the “swag-er”. And the evidence is everywhere, from the school run to the library, as well as at the recent CFDA awards, where Rihanna described her Alaïa suit as “postpartum-forward”.

For the why of all of this, the Brooklyn-based photographer and mother Sunny Shokrae looks to a cultural broadening: “The way moms are portrayed in the media has expanded and so with that people feel better taking more liberties.” Take the actor Jennifer Lawrence, who has become an emblem of aspirational “mom style”. The Cut recently coining her look as “momboy style, for the women who love the contrast between a leopard-print calfskin coat and gorpy Salomon sneakers”. With the help of conventional attractiveness, she somehow crafts Crayola-red, graphic T-shirts and forgiving silhouettes into elegant get-ups. Women who are mums are centering motherhood in their work and public personas, making the optics of what they wear feel more enmeshed with their identities as mothers. Take Beyoncé or Laura Marling, on arena stages and album covers. In fashion, Adwoa Aboah is in hoodies and asymmetric Christopher John Rogers outfits; Simone Rocha is in bows and bejewelled Crocs.

For Zoe Latta, one half of label Eckhaus Latta, who has a four-year-old, as well as a four-month-old: “Your body is changing every day – or your perception of your body and how you want to be seen is changing – and that has made me be a lot less invested in a certain sense of style, and possibly more experimental.” Your identity and your body have been thrown open, why not your wardrobe?

Rihanna’s ‘postpartum forward’ Alaïa suit. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Shokrae has “had more fun with clothes since my son was born” – not least because she finds herself “genuinely inspired by his wardrobe”. Two years ago, she shared her style with industry tastemaker Leandra Cohen, for a section on her Substack called “What do moms really wear?”. What she really wears is “seaslug-Google-image-search pants” for the playground and Target sunglasses that remind her of the Smashing Pumpkins and “bring her back to herself”.

For some women, there’s a desire to reclaim something. Where “frump” is often a misogynist hell of a word that women dread being attached to them, Latta is leaning into it via muumuus. “The misogyny of what’s frumpy is actually really freeing – to ignore the idea of what’s sexy or unsexy to an external gaze and say: “‘I’m wearing this muumuu, and it rocks’.”

Some women feel a tug to dress more “grownup” after gaining the responsibilities that come with tiny hands and feet. Latta used to wear a lot of “worn-to-shit, tattered clothes … now, when I put those things on I’m, like, this isn’t helping me feel put together.” In those early months, the softness that comes with a decade-old moth-eaten T-shirt seemed homely, but a few years in, the comfort turned claustrophobic. I often still find myself in men’s shirts, but with more starch, less slop.

Of course, it’s hard to untangle what’s motherhood and what’s just getting older – but it’s more likely it will evolve into something new. Latta thinks her shift is “irreparable. Like, definitely emotionally there are some things that I don’t want to go back [to] … clothes that are of a time before.”

There is, says Shokrae, “no rule for how moms ‘should look’. That’s made up, and I think there’s a good number of women dismantling that old way of thinking. Mothers are dynamic, like all people, more tired, yes, but they are defined by more than just their role of ‘mother’. So, too, is their style.”

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