Soda - Keeping Curious

It seems to be a pretty universal truth that women dread turning into their mothers. I helped run a focus group yesterday, to find out what motivates women to buy underwear, and it was a theme that kept cropping up time and time again! For instance, any brand that we associated with our mothers got unceremoniously shelved, even if, in reality, the brand had moved on. Even M&S’s valiant efforts to transform and discard their ‘mumsy’ image had sparked more than one panic attack…Oh my God, I’m shopping at M&S, and not just for food…are the clothes really more fashionable or am I…turning into my mother! Luckily for M&S, it seems as if brands like Per Una have done the trick but it’s interesting to think that the desire to avoid becoming our mothers actually dictates what we buy.

No doubt psychologists would have plenty to say on the subject but I wonder what it is that fills us with such dread? Is it the idea of getting older, reflected by the shrinking generation gap? Or the fact that we’ve long since waved goodbye to our youthful rebelliousness and simply acquiesced to the idea that maybe mother did know best after all? Or is it that we simply want to carve out our own path and retain our own sense of identity? It’s probably a little of a lot of things, and different for everyone I imagine. Whatever it is, it certainly seems familiar to all women, from all walks of life…

And that’s not the worst of it! My daughter’s teenage years have coincided with my thirties, so I’ve had to go through the whole ’should I still be shopping in Top Shop’ dilemma too! One participant summed it up really well though, by saying that we consider ourselves younger than our mothers did at the same age…and no doubt my daughter will think exactly the same thing too when she finds herself repeating my pet phrases, or giving her (yet to be had) kids yet another lecture on being responsible. Where things may change though, is that my daughter has been brought up in a world where her mum (and her friend’s mum’s) do shop at places like Top Shop or River Island or H&M, and where my daughter regularly drags me into Monsoon or Warehouse or House of Fraser…so are the lines between the generations getting a little more blurred - at least on the high street?