Matching Outfits: An Exclusive Guest Post from Laura Dern, Author of Honey, Baby, Mine
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This book will make you want to call your own mom or mother figure in your life — a testament to the intimacy that can be achieved when we are brave enough to speak our truths to those we love most. Keep reading for a guest post from Laura Dern about matching outfits and exploring the differences between mothers and daughters.
This book will make you want to call your own mom or mother figure in your life — a testament to the intimacy that can be achieved when we are brave enough to speak our truths to those we love most. Keep reading for a guest post from Laura Dern about matching outfits and exploring the differences between mothers and daughters.
I have always been fascinated by photos of mothers and daughters wearing matching outfits. Little girls looking so serious in tweed suits or tiny cocktail dresses. Moms appearing glamorous and youthful, clutching the hands of their mini-mes. I recently read a riveting Atlantic article about this phenomenon where the author, Kimberly Chrisman Campbell, says the practice took off in the early 1900s and tends to come back in style during times when there is a greater cultural emphasis on the family, particularly the mother-daughter relationship.
As you can tell from the image on the cover of our book Honey, Baby, Mine; I was not spared from matching with my mom. The gingham dresses were not an isolated incident. We shared many styles over the years, including similar bathing suits and a particularly traumatizing bicentennial photo shoot where we donned matching colonial-style outfits. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I did wear a bonnet for that.)
The thing that most intrigues me is trying to figure out what compels mothers and daughters to want to dress alike. Is it a show of solidarity? A badge of honor to be indistinguishable from one another? My mother and I found the opposite to be true when we had the conversations that form the backbone of Honey, Baby, Mine. For the first time, we tried to see each other, deeply, and as individuals. We asked hard questions and truly listened to the answers, even if they weren’t what we expected or wanted to hear. Understanding where she ended and I began gave me a better appreciation for the woman who raised me, and I think she was proud to see how I have found and continue to find my own way. (Even if she still insisted on correcting me on things like my favorite dessert — mothers just can’t help themselves, I guess.)
I’m always going to love the aesthetic of a good matchy-matchy mother and daughter photo, and I hope people keep doing them forever. But, after my own life-changing experience, I can’t resist encouraging parents and children to also explore each other’s differences and to celebrate them. After all, we can’t know all that that amazing individual is yet. Why try to define them?