Are mothers a thing now? You might ask yourself this question after seeing so many pregnant mothers, new babies and kids rocking the runways these past fashion weeks. It seems more and more designers have family on their minds when putting together a fashion collection, perhaps remembering that new motherhood should not be ‘in lieu of’ a fashion statement- on the contrary, babies seem to be the latest (and cutest!) fashion accessories you could get!
If mom jeans and dad sneakers are back to being cool, why wouldn’t motherhood be too?
Elena Velez for instance, often has motherhood as a starting point for her collections..
“My collections are chronicles of womanhood as I experience it in the world,” she said to Vogue via email.
Another surprising and wow moment was seeing model Mara Martin walk the Sports Illustrated catwalk while breastfeeding her 5-month old daughter back in 2018. The model mom rocked a gold, shimmering one shoulder bikini, matching her daughter’s green bikini bottoms (and diaper, haha). It was a spontaneous decision to go out on the runway while breastfeeding her sleeping baby, but it turned out to be such an excellent proof that women can be and do it all, every time.
Or take Dolce & Gabbana‘s “Viva La Mamma” runway show even further back, in 2015 for Milan Fashion Week, where the whole catwalk was an ode to motherhood brought by the most beautiful supermodels together with their precious mini’s. Honouring the lady of the house, Viva la Mamma was everything you ever wanted to see, it was filled with emotions and symbols and babies and toddlers clinging to their mothers’ hips and to their sophisticated DG outfits…
Supermodel Shanina Shaik walked the amfAR Gala in Cannes 2022, showing off her growing baby bump in a bridal-themed look. For the “Let’s get married theme”, the Australian model wore a cream coloured crochet dress with the stomach cut out and ruffles surrounding her belly .
Constance Jablonski wowed everyone during the Etam Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 show at the National Archives Museum, where she proudly walked the runway 8 months pregnant, in beautiful, sexy lingerie, with a black coat on top and knee-high boots.
Fashion house Di Petsa is also a growing trend of putting motherhood back on the spotlight. “You don’t have to ‘lose yourself,’ or your eroticism when you create a family,” she explained to Vogue. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why her sensuous Grecian-style draped gowns have become the defacto dress for celebrity pregnancy photoshoots. “For me also the idea of maternity is very expansive—we can be maternal in the love we give to others and to ourselves,” she added. “I think there is an urge to reclaim and rewrite the idea and image of motherhood and to see it from the point of embodiment and physical connection.”
