Fashion and Motherhood: How to dress and love your post-baby body with Charmaine
Having always been confident my whole life or at least for as far back as my memory takes me, I attributed confidence to be just a natural personal trait to me. Not once did it ever occur to me that maybe it’s not as innate as I thought it to be, or that there could other external factors contributing to my confident personality? When we found out we were having a baby, amidst the shock was also excitement to dress my bump! I had always been making outfit mood boards whenever I’d come across a pregnant mother-to-be whose outfit I admired, so to now be living in this reality? I clung onto my future wardrobe as a lifeline because a lot of changes were happening and that was the one thing guaranteed to keep me excited…
After sailing through my pregnancy and looking good whilst doing it, nothing could’ve prepared me for how much my confidence would be tested postpartum.
The day my baby was placed into my arms was the happiest day of my life and filled with gratitude and joy, I just thought life is going back to normal but a better version. Swarmed with tending to my newborn, I barely took time to notice myself until one day when he was napping and I was walking past a mirror. I don’t know if you’re also familiar with the double-take. The kind you do when you don’t recognize who just walked past the mirror in sync with you? Yeah! That was the first moment it started sinking in that not only was I different because I’m now a mother, but my body had also completely changed. All the SnapBacks I kept seeing online weren’t turning out to be a reality for me at that point and I needed to build my confidence, which I had never had to do before. I started to take mental notes of how my clothes had been ill-fitting my body lately and I just couldn’t recognize myself in general. It felt like I’m walking in someone else’s body, someone else’s shell. Immediately I decided to go for therapy. Retail therapy. Yes, I know it’s a quick fix. Or it was supposed to be. I bought all the kinds of clothes I used to wear pre-baby, just in a different size. I think you can guess how that story went.. my usual style was not flattering on this new body at all! And I felt my confidence shuttering even more.
To me, fashion is an area I’m quite passionate about, and up until this point I would always scream “If you look good, you feel good”, yet here I was not feeling like I look good even though my outfits were put together nicely. So I had to attack this from the reverse, I had to work on feeling good about myself first. I realized that my identity goes beyond the clothes on my body (even though style does come into play when portraying yourself to people) and that I also have to build my confidence on something else that cannot be so easily shifted as appearance. We’ve all heard “Beauty fades and charm is deceptive..” and I now found this to be as true as it stands.
This may be a little extreme for some, but I would look at my body in the mirror and speak to each body part that was an area of insecurity and tell that part how beautiful it is, how much I love it, and how grateful I am to it for carrying me through life and having me carry life through it. Eventually, I started feeling the words I was saying and continued experimenting with different styles to find what would fit my body best. This part is now for new mums or anyone going through major body changes:
This is the model I used to work out a new style for myself:
I worked out my new body type so I can look up the clothes that would highlight my favorite features and look kinder to the parts I wasn’t sure of yet.
You probably noticed what I did there. I shifted the language I use regarding my body because our internal conversation can inform our perception and it is imperative that every woman to feels great about herself both internally and externally.
I listed my day to day so I can create my wardrobe around functionality: at the time I was breastfeeding so button-downs became a go-to for easier access
The last thing was creating a “uniform” for myself so it’s easier to figure out what I’m wearing. On days I’m staying in the house it would be comfortable bottoms and button-down shirts so regardless of how calm or hectic my mornings are, I don’t then waste time struggling to figure out that day’s outfit.
As women, we deserve to feel good in our bodies and I see it as a form of honoring God by taking great care of ourselves. The best lesson I’m learning is to embrace every phase of life and find a reason to praise God through it!