My relationship with clothes changed the moment I became pregnant for the first time. I started to view clothes as something to feel comfortable in, nothing more, nothing less. Being a breastfeeding mum kinda pushes you to seek comfort above all other things.
As I grew into my role as a mother I realised that I could combine comfort, elegance and fun so I tried to develop my own style, bought new clothes every season, also shamelessly inhererited a huge amount of hand-me-downs from my mum and my sister. I was never one to follow ephemeral trends but I did like to play around with textures, and sometimes colour. And my style, I guess, could be defined as simple, classic, sometimes experimental.
Even when the weight gain began, when the stretchmarks and rolls appeared, I was determined to still love my body and just learn to dress for my shape. Over the past 15 years I swear I’ve been every size under the sun, but I don’t feel like the extra pounds here and there or accumulation of fat in some [less than strategic] areas of my body were ever the issue.
For me it was always about ‘dressing for my shape’, that part was the one thing I tried to master. I still struggle sometimes, because your girl has got one very particular shape.
However this is why I stalk accounts like AskYourFashionGodmother on Instagram, who shares her knowledge on these things like no one else on the gram. Knowing how to dress for my shape regardless of my fluctuating weight has been my personal body confidence motto.
And of course I have insecurities, just like everyone (I’ve written about them here) and I’d be lying if I said I had never tried to lose weight in the past… I have. Countless times. But I believe that when you shift your focus from an obsession with weight to what you can actually do for the body shape you have, you’ll have a lot more fun getting dressed in the morning.
À la Waïki 