In-house designers at luxury brands discuss having kids
"If you’re a woman who wants a child and a great job, you really have to fight."
Following our candid, anonymous conversations about salaries, power dynamics, and internal politics, here we discuss balancing kids and a job inside the often old-fashioned, hierarchical luxury brands of Paris, Milan, London and New York.
It’s crazy how family and children come up in conversation. It appears to be seen as a burden. It’s fine when you’re at the top because you’re pulling all the strings, but when you’re slightly lower down, and you have to navigate many opinions, it is challenging.
There aren’t enough people having children, so there isn’t enough knowledge to understand the experience. Anyone who goes through it themselves knows what support is needed. Maternity leaves are expected to be swift, and there is a lot of fear that surrounds them. When you come back, you will be expected to do the work exactly like you did before, if not more, or find another job. We are in a female-dominated industry, but it’s not accommodating to mothers. A lot of women leave the workforce when they have children.
Another thing that is very interesting, when a woman with children joins a team, people always say: “Oh, she has children, she’ll be nice.” You’re perceived as a mothering figure even before they know you. These slight misconceptions we have about women can be harmful.
When you have kids, parents become so incredible at time management, multi-tasking and managing challenging situations. They are a massive asset to studios. However, you might need to physically leave a little earlier.
██████, Consultant Design Director at ████
I got pregnant while working at ████. I remember I was working like crazy to finish the collection, when I started having really bad pains in my stomach. It slowly got worse but we were two days away from the show, so nobody noticed anything. The PA of the creative director suddenly said, “What’s going on? You need to see a doctor, now.” I kept saying, “It’s fine, I’ll just finish the line-up first.”