'I've given myself permission to wear what I want': the greatest style lessons I've learned
I first started really trying to create my own style after having my first kid, Esme, at 26. Before that I was very dependent on copying other people.
It’s been a long process. In my early teens, my relationship with clothes was about trying to cover as much of my body as possible. People would ask my mum: “How’s your son?”, and my mum would be like: “What son?” And they’d say: “The one that comes in here when you get your hair done and never takes his hat off.” That was me. I was very conscious of my developing body and that I wasn’t like the girls in magazines or music videos. So I wore combat trousers and hoodies.
Then I hit my late teens. I changed schools for sixth form and it was all about being hip, being sexy. I was dressing very much for male attention. I had a pair of very low cut, very ridiculous Guess jeans and my tops always had to be short enough to show the logo at the back. I was always borderline uncomfortable. I got too big for them when I was 18 and I was distraught. My whole life was pinned on being able to fit into those Guess jeans.
These days, I don’t like leading with my body. I don’t want to have to think about a boob falling out or shaving my legs. I have a body type that, in certain clothes, it will read as if I’m trying really hard to be sexy, even if I’m not.
What I love about young people right now, all these Gen Z-ers on TikTok, is that they are really dedicated to dressing for themselves with no one else in the equation: that’s the trend. You see men in skirts or the whole e-girl look ... it makes my mind burst! They really go out of their way to show you they don’t care.
But I’ve come towards that way of thinking, too. Part of discovering my own style is allowing myself to make mistakes. At the end of the day, I can come home, take an outfit off and think: “Yeah, I never want to wear that again.”
Clothing can be your armour. I remember very little of my dad’s funeral, but I can tell you every detail of what I was wearing. I was dressed to the nines, stockings with seams on. It was an attitude of “grief-stricken as I am, I must show up looking like an extra from a My Chemical Romance video”.
After my second child, RJ, I wore a lot of bright suits. Structure is protection. A suit meant I was not thinking about the extra weight around my tummy or that I had on a sports bra with cold cabbage leaves in because my breasts were so sore. I was at battle with my physical self, but other people had no idea, they just remembered the colourful power suit.
Related: Former Marie Claire editor Trish Halpin: 'Individuality is the only trend that matters'
Having children made me realise that society has a narrow view of motherhood, which I wanted to challenge. I launched Make Motherhood Diverse to give a voice to every type of mum out there – the Black mums, the mums in same-sex relationships, the mums with disabilities and those that find themselves on often overlooked intersections of motherhood. I want it to be a force for change.
Before I had RJ, I knew it was going to be a caesarean, so I didn’t bother with pelvic floor exercises. But he was 10lb and that’s a lot of pressure down there. About three months later, I was laughing and I thought: “Why am I peeing myself? My brain is telling me to rein it in, but here we are, still going ...” One day it even touched the floor. My sister dropped a tissue and walked behind me sweeping with her foot going: “It’s fine, it’s fine!”
It’s so common that it shouldn’t be demoralising, but it is. It changed how I dressed. Even now, though it stopped after eight months, I’m wary of things like light-coloured silk. I still love getting dressed up though. And I do not need an invitation from the queen to do a show and tell. We go to our local Harvester and I’m in six-inch heels and a silk robe. I think as women, we’re always looking for permission for things, always looking for a reason. The best way I’ve found of living is to think: “You have permission because it’s today. The reason is today.”
With bladder weakness affecting one in three women over 35, it’s time to overcome the taboos around incontinence. TENA aims to help women feel sexy, confident and able to wear what they like. Find out more at tena.co.uk/women
