Motherhood threw my style a curveball, here’s how I got it back

Motherhood, life post-pandemic and career changes can all throw our personal style, as I found out (the hard way).

Motherhood, life post-pandemic and career changes can all throw our personal style, as Alison Izzo found out (the hard way).

I recently opened the doors of my wardrobe and felt a distinct feeling of displacement. Whose clothes were these? And why were they in my bedroom? Obviously, there were mine—but looking at the crammed rack of printed maxi dresses, jumpsuits and puff-sleeved jackets I wondered what version of myself had bought these items, and when exactly it was that I’d lost my personal style.

As someone who (a long time ago!) worked in magazines as a fashion editor, this was a hard pill to swallow. The space that once housed a considered edit of sharply-cut drazers (they were a thing) and silk shirts in navy, cream and black was now a cacophony of colour and ruffles. Not that I was ever adverse to a statement print, or a girly dress… but instead of those pieces standing out like fun punctuation points in a sea of classics, they had merged into one loud and confusing wallpaper that didn’t speak to who I (thought I) was. 

Image credit: Supplied

Exiting my ‘camel mode’

I felt like I’d finally come up for air. Maybe I was out of my ‘camel mode,’ as Kathryn Jezer-Morton describes it for The Cut? After two babies (which I’d qualify by adding, means two pregnancies, two 10-month stints of breastfeeding and two separate sets of maternity leave from work), coupled with leaving a job that had (in retrospect) become too entwined with my identity, I’d finally found some space to consider how my shopping habits had changed—and why I had a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear. 

Some women seem to breeze through life’s biggest evolutions without a discernible shift in their style—and truthfully? I felt embarrassed that I’d been so knocked off course by such predictable life milestones. 

 

 

 

 

 

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‘Run with that direction’

One such unwaveringly stylish woman is Francesca Webster, founding director of Rocco House, a luxury hotel consulting agency. Webster recently gave birth, but while she was still pregnant I asked her about how she maintained her rock-solid grip on her tomboy-ish but classic look. “Find what makes you feel confident, and run with that direction,” she told me. “I feel far stronger in pants, a boyfriend shirt and a nice loafer than I do in a floral short dress —there is an energetic strength to dressing how you feel most comfortable and confident.”

“I really didn’t want to reinvent my style or sense of fashion throughout my pregnancy. It has been an evolution but one I have enjoyed… When shopping, I searched for pieces I would normally buy just with an elastic waist… I cannot wait to get back into a pair of jeans, and don’t think my style will change once I’m sans-bump. [spoiler,  it hasn’t] The nature of the pieces I love and rotate often are timeless, and so will transcend a six-to-nine month sabbatical.”

For Webster, it was a job change—not her pregnancy—that necessitated the biggest shift in how she dressed. She explains, saying “In general I believe I’ve stayed fairly consistent with my ‘look’ [while pregnant], but during my time as GM of Raes [a luxury hotel in Byron], my style needed to evolve to a more resort wear aesthetic—one that avoided black and denim.”

Unlike Webster, I think I’d lost hold of any ‘energetic strength’ slowly over five years—mostly because what used to make me feel comfortable and confident was simply no longer practical. Engorged boobs and milk stains made silk shirts untenable. Tailored skirt sets definitely didn’t accommodate a growing bump. And my well-cut wardrobe classics were far too corporate and restrictive for racing after a toddler at the park. Enter stage left: a slew of garishly patterned wrap dresses, oversized logo tees (shudder) and sparkly ‘going out tops’ to make myself feel lively (ha!) when I did venture out after the dinner/bath/bed routine. I should add a disclaimer that I don’t think the above items are ‘bad’ or  unstylish in any way—they just weren’t really me. 

Image credit: Supplied

The world has changed

Prudence Webb, co-founder of Melbourne-based personal styling service The Wardrobe Edit, sees a lot of women who—like me—lost their way during motherhood, but she says the pandemic also played a part—a factor I hadn’t considered. She explains that “With all the joy that motherhood brings, it can also mean body changes; lack of time, juggling work and family commitments—particularly in the early years. Covid and lockdowns have also played a huge part in people losing their sense of self. The world changed and the way we live and dress changed, too.”

While I never had an issue getting out of my sweats, I also couldn’t connect with who I was (or what I wore) pre-pandemic. “Many of our clients engage our services due to big life changes—be it motherhood, juggling returning to work, career changes, moving cities and more. What worked once, doesn’t necessarily work now—it can be challenging to navigate a new life stage.” And when nothing fits (either physically or emotionally), you can feel adrift in a world where everyone else seems to have their personal brand sorted. 

 

 

 

 

 

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The ‘personal brand’ risk

Kathryn Eisman, Sydney-based fashion journalist and the host of Undressed with Kathryn Eisman, tells me that my preoccupation with personal branding is ultimately misguided. She explains (kindly, I should add) that “‘Personal style’ has been commercialised as a term and I think that in the culture that we live in people are hung up on a very binary concept of identity and personal branding. They can often become a caricature of themselves, like Steve Jobs, and paint themselves into a corner.” I wonder what Eisman would think if she could see my schizophrenic wardrobe as I idling toy with the idea of adopting Jobs’ black turtleneck and jeans uniform.

Eisman does however make a good point for opening oneself up to variety, adding that “I think adhering to a rigid sense of personal style limits us as equally as it ‘frees us from choice’; restricting us from the different aspects of ourselves, because we're not just one thing.” I nod, because after two kids and 180-career pivot, there are definitely more facets of myself than when I last felt like I owned my personal style.

“Style, like everything in life, doesn’t stay the same. Different life chapters dictate different fashion choices, and so your style should evolve over the years so that it continues to serve you,” says Eisman - who herself helps people to get their style back on track. 

Prior to talking to Eisman, I did a huge wardrobe clear out—selling my printed silk dresses and giving some sparkly tops to friends and colleagues—and I was happy to see them go. But her words made me look at those discarded items not with disgust, or as signifiers of a time where my style disappeared, but rather as fond reminders of a distinct chapter in my life - one that’s now closed. 

And now? I get to start afresh, with more wardrobe space to fill the next chapter. Who knows, it might even include a sparkly ‘going out top’. 

 

 

 

 

 

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How to find your personal style

Kathryn Eisman recommends a riff on the Tiktok-famous ‘Three Word Method’ from New York-based fashion stylist Allison Bornstein to identify and bed-down your own sense of style. Bornstein’s theory asks you to find recurring aesthetics in your existing wardrobe and couple them with how you aspire to dress—distilling those common themes into three words that becomes your ‘north star’ when shopping. 

Eisman, instead, goes for a value-driven line of questioning, suggesting to “Give your style three power words, or three characteristics. I'm not talking about fashion words, but [more] personal characteristics of yourself, those that you are most proud of and that you want the world to see… Those three words that might be ‘creative’, it might be ‘powerful,’ it might be ‘spiritual’ —it could be anything. But use those as a compass to help you navigate whether you should purchase a new item of clothing, or whether you should get rid of something. It's good to have a compass that's connected to your personal identity and values.” 

Lastly, Eisman employs us to make space for falling in love with something that’s not ‘you’. She qualifies this seemingly contradictory statement by saying “The fact that you love it means it's a part of you - you can have those moments of frivolity… Create space in your life and in your wardrobe for random acts of madness. Getting dressed should be fun.”

Alison Izzo is a Sydney-based writer, editor, podcaster, fashion lecturer and founder of AIM Creative. You can follow her here on Instagram. 

Originally published as Motherhood threw my style a curveball, here’s how I got it back