To be honest, it was a perfect storm of circumstances that led me to set up...
Five years ago in March 2007 my second baby was due, and my sister's wedding was planned for June. GAH! This pitched me into a real panic about what was I going to wear?
How would I breastfeed my new baby and not have to disappear to another room whilst doing so? I didn't want to flash maternity tummy at elderly relatives or my sister's trendy friends! Was I going to have to wear my maternity clothes and hoik them up to feed? How would I look on the photos? I needed to look like a pretty, stylish older sister and avoid looking like the sleep-deprived new mummy that previous experience told me I knew I would feel like!
I honestly had such a dilemma about this, that during my (increasing) periods of wakefulness in the middle of the night whilst the baby kicked and woke me, and I wandered the house looking for distractions, I increasingly found myself drawn to the internet to seek out fantastic nursing clothes that would be suitable to wear for the special occasion.
Whenever I found gorgeous breastfeeding dresses, they were from websites/stores based in the USA, Singapore or Australia. So frustrating! Would they fit? How much was shipping? What were the customs charges? What were the sizes? How did the nursing access work? Would the dresses suit me? How would I return them if they did not?? Why, why, why were the clothes I found in the UK so frumpy?
Something had to be done. I began to collect all the gorgeous dresses and clothing I had found online, and this went into my business plan for Bella Mama.
Bella Mama was launched when Orla was 2.5 months old. Luckily, she was the most placid, easy-going baby and was very content to feed, play and nap, leaving me with lots of time whilst she rested to set up the website, stock the store and test the best breastfeeding clothing available.
When Orla was 4 months old, we travelled around the world to stay with friends in Australia. My husband was working for himself, and I was on Mat Leave, and a number of our friends had emigrated to Australia and issued open invitations for us to come stay with them. We decided to take them up on the offer, and booked our trip. Many of our friends though we were bonkers to travel with such young children, but that has never phased me and Dan. What's the worst that happen?? We could cope!
We travelled smoothly from Manchester to Heathrow, despite the airline forgetting to offload the Bugaboo at Heathrow (it got booked straight on through to San Francisco). Dan strapped on the Baby Bjorn and we were off. The flight from Heathrow to San Francisco was fabulous. I breastfed Orla just before takeoff, which really helped to settle her. We spent a long weekend in San Francisco, then straight on to our amazing friends in Brisbane for amazing holiday and lots of time spent out on their boat! Finn especially enjoyed time spent with his mate, Noah.
From there we went to friends in Perth, then onto Singapore where I met with gorgeous breastfeeding clothing designers Annie from Annee Matthew and Karen from Maternalove.
I had great fun trying on loads of Annie's designs - who knew being a business woman meant a totally unstuffy, very feminine way of meeting and forging business links! Such a great time and Annie's love of beautiful fabrics and stylish designs ensured her clothing formed a real backbone of Bella Mama's first collection. Maternalove was a very new company too at the time, and Karen was fabulously informative and very understanding of my new business. Dan had taken the kiddos out for a walk around Sentosa on the day, whilst I met Karen in our hotel room. I vividly remember him having to extend and extend his walk with the children as we chatted about nursing clothes, kids and new businesses!
These gorgeous breastfeeding clothing designers formed our first collection at Bella Mama, and since then we have endeavoured to introduce the best in breastfeeding and nursingwear fashion to the UK.
Not long after I returned to work, the company I was working for decided they needed to downsize and I took voluntary redundancy, which enabled me to build Bella Mama as a business.
I am really proud to say that Bella Mama have been the first to bring many new nursingwear clothing designers to the UK. I am delighted to support small fledgling brands, usually run by new mamas themselves, and to offer their clothing range to nursing mamas in the UK and to help build their brands over here. Five years on from our launch, I am so proud that we are offering the very best range of breastfeeding clothing available worldwide right here in the UK!
Hurrah!
Here's to the next five years of Bella Mama! We have so many exciting things to offer, and many new directions in which we are expanding. I'm so happy to have had so many wonderful experiences through Bella Mama, and really look forward to the experiences the coming years bring!
Kirsten
xx
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