What do moms really wear: Londie Ncube
The mom of one on how she gets dressed
What do moms really wear captures the process of getting dressed for women with style who are also moms. If you would like to nominate someone for this series, comment on this e-mail with their name and handle. To see the edition that ran last month with Paz Friedman, click here.
Today, welcome Londie Ncube, the European fashion editor and co-founder of Atijo with a two-year-old daughter who lives near London.
Morning drop off, 8:45 a.m.
We get up around 7:15, brush our teeth and get dressed. I make breakfast — usually an egg with a side of something: mushroom, green beans, bacon, or sometimes Akela [my daughter] likes Bran Flakes with a bit of syrup. She likes to listen to a little song in the morning, so I’ll usually play some background music while I’m preparing our meal.
When we’re getting ready, I get dressed while I’m dressing her.
Normally, I’ll put our clothes out the night before because I know in the morning, we’ll have to rush, and for the most part, Akela doesn’t fight about what to wear. She’s in charge of accessories — socks, shoes, and her hat, I handle the rest. After I drop her off at the childminder, either I take the train to work (in central London), or if I’m working from home, I’ll first go to the gym.
The most important features of my outfit are comfort and confidence — comfortable enough to commute, to be a mom, and confident enough for meetings, to work.
My week is split between working from home and going into the office. It’s nice to have that balance — it suits a young mom’s needs much better.
On the days I work from home/a coffee shop, her dad still collects her and I’m always excited to have some time with her after work.
Would this outfit be different if I didn’t have kids? Oh, yes. On the days I don’t have to drop the baby off, I’m in more of a look. I have more time to accessorize, to add pizzazz. I’d wear something more like this:
The time gives me more freedom and flexibility to take risks.
I don’t know if this was the case for you, but after I had kids, I needed to rediscover my confidence; I loved my pregnancy and had fun getting dressed through it but after the baby came, I sort of lost my ground and felt like I needed to rebuild my personality — to rediscover it, clothes have really helped me with that.
Weekend hang with the family:
The dressing formula here is underpinned by the same motivation for comfort but I try to have a bit more fun with what I wear on the weekend. I want to be able to run after my daughter, to do all the things I have to do as a mom, and still feel like I am dressed.
[On a weekend], we normally try to stay in bed until 8:30/9 a.m., then will have breakfast. If it’s nice out, we’ll eat in the garden, make our plans for the day (either go to a nearby farm or out to lunch), and from there, generally meet up with friends. Akela likes to be social and so do I, so right now the weekends are about how to entertain us both.
Spending time outdoors is very important to my partner and me; he grew up in Finland and I am from Zimbabwe where we didn’t spend most of our childhoods in a classroom — we were always outdoors, so even if the weather is bad, we’ll start the day by putting on our shoes and going out for a walk.
She’ll be starting at a forest school after the summer, so she’ll continue to spend a lot of her time outdoors. Both me and my partner knew we didn’t want her in a classroom, there was a deep internal desire to bring [the texture of our upbringings] to her, even though it is so different from what everyone else is doing.
It’s a cultural quality that matters a lot to us and it’s funny because I’m recognizing [the influence of my upbringing in how I parent]. After I had her, I joined all the mom groups on Facebook and noticed that while I wasn’t really in a rush to put her in daycare, so many moms told me that I’d be a better mom if I did. I’m coming around to realizing how different it is for every mom. And even culture aside, you reach a point, I think, where you start to understand that the only person who knows what kind of parent you want to be — how you should raise your child — is you.
The best thing we have as parents are those internal voices/feelings because they guide us. I think becoming a parent starts to disarm a lot of [one’s] desire to fit in.
In a way, clothes [that reflect your true taste] do this too.
Mom’s night out:
I reach for vintage before anything: it’s my way of shopping and I go all over the place for it. My friend owns a shop in Barcelona called Los Felix and does these online drops where I always find the greatest selection. Lots of eBay, Vestiaire — I have a general routine where I add things to my basket and then wait to see if I still want it after time. I’m also big on setting alerts for certain things, like the Air Rifts from my weekend look.
This is an ideal look for dinner — with my partner or with friends, or even to lunch with friends (without the baby). Or honestly, just when I want to feel great. I love to wear white but don’t do it as much anymore, it’s not practical. I have some beautiful white or silk pieces and there is something to be said about pulling out a lovely piece when you know you’re going to be out by yourself.
It makes me feel like I’m tapping into a different part of me — it’s hard to put into words because it’s more like an energy that can’t be transmitted when I’m with the baby but it’s the essence of me as just me.
Now that I think of it, I can be doing the most mundane thing but if my baby is not coming, I am getting Dressed. I had a day trip, for example, to Valencia recently. It was literally for one day and I should have just gone with sneakers, trousers, and a blazer but I packed the most impractical outfit because I knew I was going to be alone, so I ended up strutting around in the most ridiculous but fun looks.
The shoes in particular were so impractical because the streets in Valencia are cobblestone.
I think prior to kids I would have been practical first and worked around that but now there’s this desire to reach for these moments whenever I can. You get to tap into this playfulness that does something to you, reminds you in a way that you’re still you under all the roles.
Do I get mom rage? Yes. But I try to have a weekly — no, I try to have a check-in with myself every other day.
I’ve started to make a list of passages or quotes I read about motherhood that stick with me. They’re the ways I want to be a mother. I go through the list when I am having a moment and it allows me to calm myself down much quicker. It reminds me to be accountable for how I’m acting as a mom — for me, the rage comes up when I lose my own boundaries. When I’m not doing anything for myself.
One thing that’s important for [my family] too: dinner together every night. My mom was a single mom and raised me [and my siblings] alone, but always made sure sitting down and eating and giving gratitude was part of our days. It’s a value that has become central to my motherhood too. My mom is religious and I am not but I have so much respect and adoration for her faith; it’s given her the ability to do everything for us.
She’s been such a positive life source and I think about that a lot when I’m parenting Akela — I want to feel like home to her outside of just being her mom. And this is something you have to work at, and which you can’t really assume will just be there when you become a mom. It really takes work to become a safe place for another person. Work and so much intention. As told to Leandra Medine Cohen from London to Athens on June 30th, 2023.
Ay the last sentence girl, yes.
And I really loved your going out look, the sheer shirt, yum.
I can relate to this so much. Some folks go all into being a mom, others don’t change much from their pre-mom identities. But, like Londie, I want to be able to do it all, and I appreciate her honesty in balancing that.