It wasn’t until I locked eyes with a Premiership rugby player as I got out of my car at 8 a.m. that I realised I might need to up my game for drop-offs at the children’s new school. I would need to start wearing eye make-up, for starters. I should also give a little more thought to an outfit than picking up yesterday’s T-shirt and cut-off jeans from the bedroom floor – although ‘outfit’ is one of those words that makes me wince, like ‘gift’ or a ‘pop’ of colour.
Still, ‘outfits’ are what a certain type of woman around here goes in for. Among a sort of country-prep-miles-from-anywhere subset, you will find mothers trying their best to fit into what the Times has identified as the ‘Ganni Mum’ tribe. Named for their devotion to the Scandi brand (lots of leopard print/shapeless candy-coloured gingham dresses/blouses with puffy shoulders/chunky Chelsea boots), in urban areas, Ganni Mums are married to Henrys (High Earners, Not Rich Yet) and have elbowed out the beige Yummy Mummies.
But out here in the furthest reaches of East Anglia, the school-gate mothers haven’t quite perfected the Ganni Mum look. Partly this is because the nearest branch of Ganni is a good three hours away and so they must rely on local boutiques (another wince word) selling knock-off styles, or Vinted. Other rural areas are less deprived: Wiltshire mothers can find Ganni clothes stocked on Marlborough high street.
The other reason these women haven’t nailed the look is because what really matters to rural school mothers is inherited wealth. When an urban Ganni Mum arrives in the countryside, with her obvious new money, it’s time to start looking for schools elsewhere. An influx of Henrys from London and their WWWs (Wives Who Work, I just made that up) is vulgar. It is certainly reason enough to pull Arthur and Willow out of the school and send them down the coast road to the Other Prep, the one that can boast pupils with actual titles. (Every family here has a son called Arthur; I swear I once met a woman with two Arthurs among her extensive brood, privately educated across five counties, but then I may have drunk too much Picpoul.)
Here in the country, obvious ‘professional’ clothing is a no-no for the school-gate mothers. It’s an indicator of having neither family money nor a self-made husband to pay the bills. But rural-school mothers still cling on to their white Veja trainers, a nod to the urban Yummy Mummy, whom they simultaneously revere and look down on.
At Oxford’s Dragon School, mothers are no longer eccentric dons’ wives but ‘wealth with an urban twist’
I long to hear David Attenborough’s commentary on school-gate mothers, but as written by Helen Serafinowicz, co-creator of Motherland and Amandaland. Really, The Good Schools Guide should start including a paragraph on each institution’s tribes, so prospective parents can decide if they’re your people or not.
St Hugh’s in Oxfordshire is ‘all Lululemon and Verbier baseball caps’, a friend discloses. ‘It’s very sporty – everyone’s going back to their tennis courts after drop-off for lessons with the coach they’re probably shagging.’ This surprises me as I’d have imagined it to be tweedier, but then Oxfordshire isn’t proper countryside. I don’t think these women walk their own dogs or have much need for country clothing.
In Oxford itself, mothers at the Dragon School are no longer eccentric dons’ wives but ‘wealth with an urban twist, so Chanel pumps’, advises another friend. And at Farleigh in Hampshire, ‘there’s a bit of stealth wealth but a lot of Schöffel gilets’, aka Cirencester life-jackets.
I don’t fit in with any tribe (unless you count muddy), so watch all this with bemused anthropological detachment. Back when I lived in south London it was much more simple: the mothers who’d managed to keep hardcore careers going (corporate law, fund management) wore dark suits under smart coats, while the freelancers’ uniform usually involved some grey cashmere and what fashion writers call ‘athleisure wear’. My leggings were always Sweaty Betty rather than Lululemon – I was on a budget. One mother at a London school reports on the rise of the ‘bumbag and bum-lift leggings’ look. It says: ‘I’m busy (hands free!) but I still find time to keep myself in shape.’
Nowadays, I like to sling a tailored waterproof coat over my freelance uniform and pop a knife in the pocket for cutting baler twine, so I can go out and hay the animals before the school run. For the mornings when I must hammer through the lanes to catch the London train, I swap the leggings for a pair of high-waisted tailored trousers. My beloved black velvet Isabel Marant boots, a relic of the Dean Street days, live in the car. They are pulled on at the station, to avoid them being coated in the mud that penetrates everything, even the inside of our organic eggs. At Liverpool Street, I reach into my pocket for my bank card and realise that the knife is still there and I am, in fact, ‘carrying’.
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