Perils of being a fashionista mother

Last week, I went through a day of shows with a smear of red unguent on my shoulder, the legacy of a lovely goodbye hug from my daughter. Peer at the fashion X-ray in her shiny new season's garb, and a patina of jam smears, paint blobs and toast crumbs is fairly evident. Whisper it, but most of them are mothers, too. Since the fashion industry is unusual in the high percentage of women it employs, you would think it might make some concessions to women's lives. Not so. For 10 weeks of the year, we are required to dump our families in favour of the bright lights of the catwalk, as the fashion circus moves through New York, London, Milan and Paris. I'd been doing the job for 10 years before my first child came along, and it was difficult enough then.

Now, it is a living nightmare. I don't know how we do it — and in my darkest hours, I'm not sure
why, either.

If your parents live nearby, and are devoid of arthritis/ sciatica/angina, you might just be able to cope with the seven-day-a-week, 24-hour childcare that the job demands. As our parents live hundreds of miles away, and are old, we are scuppered. Or we would be, if my partner didn't work from home and wasn't so very understanding. I take the 7am plane, he takes the slack. Then he takes the train to Yorkshire for parental help. If he is lucky, he might get to write a sentence of his book. I am extremely lucky that his research requires him to be in Yorkshire, and that my absence gives him an opportunity for extended visits home.

Still, life changes. I don't see my job as a long-term career any more, but as something that only the grace of God and family are allowing me to continue with. What happens when she goes to
school? What happens if we have another baby? We are hanging on by a thread as it is. I'm not saying I have it harder than any other working mum — hell, no — but it would be nice to work among women who you could moan to, or get fat with, instead of having to show out in a cocoon coat, four-inch wedges and flawless make-up after four hours sleep.

Fashion and motherhood are oil and water, chalk and cheese, Armani and Gareth Pugh. But fashion is rewarding, too, otherwise I suppose we wouldn't work in the business. Straight after show-time, I take a long holiday and laugh heartily as my daughter trounces round the room in my brand new Prada shoes.