The working mum’s style guide

Finding your style again post-pregnancy can often be a challenge. But what if your job is to tell others how to dress? The Times fashion editor Harriet Walker reports

Before I returned to my job as fashion editor of The Times at the end of maternity leave last month, I was plagued by a recurring anxiety dream. Was it to do with leaving my baby for the first time? Nope. What woke me with a start at 4am was a nightmare about turning up at the office wearing the same leggings and slightly splodgy T-shirt I’d worn for the best part of a year.

I’d been four very different jeans sizes in 18 months. I had a bump for the first nine and then needed constant access to my boobs for the last. I hadn’t got dressed on my own terms for what felt like a lifetime – my daughter Freda’s, to be precise – and I’d completely forgotten how to do it. How could I tell other people what to wear when I didn’t know how to dress myself any more?

Before pregnancy, my look was pretty low-key: jeans, shirts, the odd non-dressy dress. Classic wardrobe staples that added up to effortless chic – at least that was the idea. What nobody told me was, once you’ve had a baby, there’s no such thing as effortless. Try it as a new mum and people start to wonder whether you’re OK. See also: ‘ barely there’ make-up and artfully mussed hair.

My style is definitely more considered now, which is ironic because I’ve never had less time to consider it. But I can’t just throw on any old thing any more – clothes look different on a body that has grown a child, whatever size it might be.

Everything I wear now needs to have a waist, or I end up a bit untidy. I used to live in baggy, minimalist pieces from COS and Acne, but postbump they make me look like I’m hiding something, so I’ve invested in a few belted dresses from Zara, palmer//harding and Kitri for the warm weather.

The Topshop and Tibi pleated midiskirts I used to wear with loose sweaters I now tuck T-shirts into

instead. Arket’s £12 cotton ones are the absolute best – I like the fit and they go with everything, so I bought a job lot. Boring as it might sound, having a uniform’s worth of basics is really helpful.

Trousers are a bit trickier thanks to what Instamums call the ‘pouch’, the now-empty basement flat the baby used to rent. Until I can find time to do 1,000 crunches a day, high-waisted jeans provide a Spanx effect – I like H&M’S wide-leg crop and AG’S Phoebe slim cut. For tops, I find what fashion editors call a ‘ Vetements tuck’ – into the waistband at the front but not the back – more flattering than all the way around.

Speaking of denim and ‘flattering’, the cropped flare styles I had before are on the back-burner for now. Something happens to your hips after childbirth and you do not want to highlight it with these, trust me. I also spend too much time bent over helping Freda to walk to even countenance a low-rise any more.

It took me a while to look at shirts again after breastfeeding – anything with buttons, really – but I’m now sold on them as a way of making myself look instantly smarter with very little exertion. Now my days are spent away from sticky little fingers, I’m back in my old Equipment silks. They’re easy, versatile and come in a hundred different colours.

I was only too delighted to unearth clothes such as these again – though the slashed-front Margiela dress more gap than garment and rubber skirt I bought on a whim from a young London designer gave me pause as I unpacked my old life, I must say. I’m not interested in looking edgy any more, I just want to look nice (and they say people with kids aren’t cool!). Maybe that’s lame, but it’s harder than ever on not much sleep. To distract from my face, I recently bought a Céline bag for people to look at when they talk to me.

I have never been so glad to get rid of anything as the vile zippy neck/pokey-through feeding tops addled new mums are told they need ( you soon realise just lifting your T-shirt up is much easier). Ditto the ‘in-between’ jeans I bought when the preggo ones were too loose and the usual ones too tight. If anyone ever tries to separate me from my navy blue Hanro pyjamas though, I can’t be held accountable for my actions. I bought them to wear for the two weeks after birth and have now been in them for over a year.

The leggings I gave to a charity shop in the end – but only because it seemed less hassle than burning them.