Do I dress like a 'frumpy' mum now?
Apparently my sense of style left my body with my placenta - or so the sneering at 'mum fashion' would have you believe
“Yeah, sambas were really cool in the Nineties. They had a comeback a couple of years ago, but now they’re just what mums wear.”
Oof, I thought to myself, standing in a changing cubicle at the sauna recently and overhearing those words uttered by a young male journalist (who shall remain nameless) in his attempt to impress two American women. That one stung. Then I pulled on my sambas and left.
At least he didn’t use the word ‘mumsy’ I suppose?
It rankled at me for the rest of the day, that comment. I felt pretty put out that I’d been lumped in with some homogenous group of women - mothers - just because I’d had a baby and owned Adidas sneaks. So unfair. How dare he.
And then, last week, I had a double take moment, when dropping my son off at nursery. Walking down the road past another mum who had just got rid of deposited her child for the day, I noticed with alarm that we were wearing the exact same thing, head to toe. I kid you not. Double denim - jeans and shirt - black t-shirt, Birkenstocks. I’m almost certain her shirt was also from With Nothing Underneath. We gave one another a look - it felt like being part of a club that I’m not sure I ever decided to join. Obviously I went home and set fire to the entire outfit.
I thought that I’d made an effort to still dress ‘like me’. Hah. I even wore triple denim one day last week, but apparently this is no longer considered quirky. Other items, I’ve stubbornly refused to give up wearing just because I have a baby. Mohair cardigans, velvet jeans, a cream silk shirt - I’ve put them on and tried my very hardest to accept that they might not make it to the end of the day unsoiled. But when a new black Cos jumper lasted just two hours before being coated in a projectile of sick, I had to wonder whether it was worth it (turns out boiled wool doesn’t much like being rubbed vigorously with water wipes).
Clearly, I’ve been kidding myself. So now I’m at a crossroads: I hate the assumption that my sense of style somehow left my body along with my placenta, but - now that I’m doing it - I’m wondering what’s actually so wrong with dressing in a ‘mum uniform’? Why do I feel so weird about it anyway?
One clue comes via a survey by baby bottle brand Tommee Tippee and parenting app Peanut, which found that two thirds of new mothers felt they’d lost part of their identity and 40 per cent felt less confident. How do you go about finding some sort of sense of self again? By fitting in, of course. Pass me the Breton tops, elasticated waist trousers and sambas pronto.
Part of my squeamishness must come from the message we’ve all been sent that dressing like a mum is about as uncool as it's possible to be. A couple of years ago, a childfree friend was accosted by a charity clipboard-wielder in the street, who shouted ‘hey supermum!’ in her direction, because - she told me - “I was wearing Lululemon and rushing along looking a bit harassed”.
We stereotype mothers and sneer at their sartorial choices. ‘Mum fashion’ is code for being unimaginative and frumpy. We’re expected not to care how we’re dressed because a small person is going to smear pureed fruit down it, anyway. Or we’re laughed at for our expensive gym leggings, with a sort of ‘who do you think you are bothering to dress in something decent?’ vibe.
I’m struggling to think of any other time that women are so openly mocked for what they wear and nothing is really said about it. Yes, there’s a lot of joking around dad dressing, too, but it seems somehow more affectionate? It’s become a fashion trend in its own right - think hiking gear, practical clothing and ‘dadcore’ jeans. Barack Obama, with his stonewashed denim and giant white trainers, is a style icon in 2025. Whereas I can’t stop thinking about the Saturday Night Live sketch with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in which the pair mock ‘Mom jeans’, with the faux advertising tagline: ‘Give her something that says, ‘I’m not a woman anymore, I’m a mom!’ That one hurts.
But, there’s also the fact that a lot of my clothes now make me feel a bit silly. Often, I look in the mirror and don’t really recognise the person staring back at me. I’ve sold a load of stuff on Vinted - so long, bright green knitted crop top and beaded cape. Goodbye bright yellow blazer that once felt jaunty and now makes me look like I work down the docks. Even my go-to gold hoop earrings are threatening to become ‘not right’ as the baby has discovered how to grab and tug. An earlobe disaster looms.
Plus, after weeks postpartum, wearing maternity leggings, giant disposable knickers (life hack: you can put these in the washing machine several times before they perish) and my husband’s t-shirts, it’s hard to know how you want to be in the world. So you lean into the stuff that you know works: elasticated boots, those stringy Keen Uneek sandals - not even sorry - or Birkenstocks are essential for collecting my son from nursery, for instance, because I have to remove my shoes in the baby room and trying to put them back on with a wriggling infant in your arms should be an Olympic sport. I learnt that the hard way on his first day, when I turned up in my green Converse hi-tops (another one for the mum dressing bingo there).
One thing I’ve found really weird is the number of people who’ve assumed that now that I have a child, I’ll be getting my hair cut short. Short short - cropped or bobbed.
Eh? Yes, my son likes to grab fistfuls of my hair whenever he can reach it and stuff the strands into his little mouth. Yes, the ends are more often than not crunchy with dried saliva. I’m not saying it’s great (I’ve never even bothered to apply Argan oil to my split ends before, let alone baby spit) but that doesn’t mean I’ll be getting a ‘mum bob’ - another derogatory term. A haircut that chooses you. Slightly tragic and inevitable.
Can we just give mums a break? I’m not frumpy. I’m not getting a mum bob. I’ve not given up or let myself go. It’s just that boilersuits have a lot of helpful pockets and denim can withstand a lot of machine washing. Boiled wool, not so much.