Susie Lau On Fashion's Embrace Of Mumcore
After the final sprint of a chaotic period that had seen a hardcore house renovation, with no kitchen, water or heating, I knew I had reached peak mum when I reached for a pair of ten year-old Valentino x Gap cargo trousers for the fourth day running. I greeted the paint splashes, the bits of encrusted pasta sauce and grease stains like dear old friends. Pre-child me would not recognise this slovenly creature, happily wearing the same sullied item of clothing repeatedly like a scene from the sitcom Motherland.
But here I am, with two kids in tow, and succumbing to the very thing I so adamantly protested against when I had my first child. When Nico was born seven years ago, I naively felt immune to outward mum mess. I prided myself on retaining my signature style, for the most part, and was determined to hold onto everything that I felt made me ‘me’ – which were cacophonous layered outfits comprised of colour and print. I congratulated myself for turning up to nursery pick-up in polka-dot Comme des Garçons and platform Prada boots.
Then, a few years ago, I had my son Casper, and since then the 'fits have become distinctly threadbare. The truth is, I’m a happily frazzled mum, what's more, I revel in it. With two children, a full-on job and the unwritten household mental load that comes with living a grown-up and mortgaged existence, you end up wearing that chaos.
That’s on top of wanting to tend to my relationships more - with my partner, friends, and family. Somewhere among the bustle of life, meticulously co-ordinating tones of pinks in floral prints and puzzling together complicated bodysuits, skirts and trousers have dropped down the priority list. That’s not to say I no longer enjoy dressing 'up up', but dressing 'down down' has, at times, become the only sane option. Finding a clean top somewhere in a laundry pile and putting it on feels like a win. My outfit goals have become smaller, and I’ve willingly run out of steam.
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Thankfully, fashion is acknowledging harried-mum energy this season, even if it is unintentional. Call it the Fleabagging of motherhood, which stands in opposition to the refined 'Rich Mom Energy' of cashmere, fine gold jewellery and a giant Birkin, or the perfection of Mumfluencers, with their blowouts and spotless cottagecore dresses. The gradual casualfication of high fashion over the last few years, means that everything normal and real is up for style elevation. I have Miuccia Prada to thank for putting unbrushed hair, leggings and oversized hoodies on the catwalk and making it a style statement. For spring/summer 2024, the bags at Miu Miu were stuffed to the brim with the working woman’s gear of flats, gym kit and more. I recognised the capacious totes that mirrored my own, filled with emergency child-friendly snacks, a change of clothes in case of poonamis and the myriad of kiddy paraphernalia we think we need.
Chanel’s Virginie Viard has long advocated for a more informal Chanel woman and, for spring, she introduced flip-flops (worn with deliberately unpedicured feet) and jeans to the keep the maison's fancy tweed grounded. That’s the parents’- meeting look sorted. Loewe elevated the throw-over-everything elongated cardigan to great heights with a super-chunky cable knit and giant gold buttons, perfect for hiding the spag-bol stains. For Balenciaga’s pre-fall 2024 collection, the LA mum got a nod: trussed up in velour and complete with prosthetic lip fillers, a leather-faced Erewhon bag in one hand and a giant cup of coffee in the other. On a recent trip to the Calabasas branch of the status-symbol grocery store, I can report that Balenciaga was not so much parodying the LA mom-at-leisure, as celebrating her boujie glory, Botox and all.
Fashion’s nods to mum life are a natural evolution following a period of featuring pregnant women on the runway and in its imagery, including Sinéad O’Dwyer and Di Petsa showcasing impossibly glowing pregnant women in revealing, nymph-like outfits in their collections. But while motherhood is celebrated on the catwalk, it will always be fashion’s impulse to romanticise real life. If only actual mum layers mirrored Miu Miu’s pairing of sheer knickers with multiple skirts, and we could somehow make that look work on the school pick-up run. The artful, chaotic dressing that fashion is currently glamorising doesn’t quite reflect the reality of porridge-encrusted hair or the struggle to take a shower because your one-year-old won't let you leave the room.
Where fashion mumcore takes on extra meaning is when the pieces are created by actual mothers. When Phoebe Philo chose to make a necklace comprised of the word ‘mum’ in chunky gold lettering, as she did in the first drop of her much-awaited, eponymous brand, it’s not just funny or ironic. Philo, of course, has a first-hand understanding of what it takes to be a mother at the top of her fashion game; she famously left her position as creative director of Chloé in 2006, while on an extended maternity leave, to spend more time with her family. The move was an industry first. At a time when the fashion world is, quite rightly, questioning the lack of female creative directors at major houses, which are overwhelmingly helmed by white men, the topic feels pertinent.
At her SS24 show, the young Italian designer Jezabelle Cormio, who is a mother herself, had an AI voiceover give it to us straight: ‘Women make up more than 70% of the total workforce in the fashion industry, but they hold less than 25% of leadership positions in top fashion companies.’ What would be ‘mother’ (modern internet-speak has turned the noun into an adjective describing anything iconic or fierce) is if actual mums mothered at the top of the fashion food chain. I see designers such as Simone Rocha, Molly Goddard and Martine Rose – women at the height of their careers, who have managed to juggle parenthood alongside running their businesses – and think about how their vision could be translated to luxury-fashion houses. Now that really would be mother!
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