A NEW online maternity boutique founded by a Limerick woman wants to help pregnant women feel like themselves during pregnancy, not just like a mother-to-be.
Leah Morgan founded online boutique The Divine after giving birth to her son, Luca. The young mother was inspired to set up the business because she felt that she couldn’t find clothes that were her style during her pregnancy.
Speaking to the Limerick Post, Leah said that a lot of the styles out there were quite “matronly” and she was looking for something different.
“I was struggling in finding clothes that represented me. I was 30 at the time and I felt like the minute you became pregnant, all of the clothes and the different brands that are out there, they almost talk to you a lot differently and nothing really represented me or my peers,” she said.
“Everything was quite old fashioned or a bit matronly I suppose, and I didn’t want to go around wearing slogan t-shirts that said ‘mama’ on them. I just found it really, really hard. I had a wedding coming up and I couldn’t find anything for love nor money.
“I kept joking around to my boyfriend saying ‘maybe I should open my own boutique’. I just kept saying it and, the more I said it, I started to look into it a bit more and I said I might as well just give it a go.”
After having the initial idea, Leah found that there wasn’t any other stores offering what she had in mind.
“I did a bit of market research and there wasn’t really anything like that in Ireland for what I had in my head, you know, for a place to get more fashionable clothing and that wasn’t talking to you like you were just a mother now, that you had nothing else going on in your life,” Leah said.
“You almost get put into a box the minute you become pregnant that ‘all mothers dress like this’ and you like floral print now and polka dots, when that isn’t really the case.”
Leah says that “a lot of the maternity outlets in Ireland at the moment also cater for babies, you know, they might have a few nursing bras but they’d also have babygrows. My store is solely for the mother, it’s just somewhere pregnant mothers can go, postpartum mothers can go, where they know they’ll be able to find something stylish.”
The Adare native also said that, during her pregnancy, she wanted to avoid buying from fast fashion outlets, explaining that all clothes stocked by The Divine are from slow fashion producers.
“All of the clothes I stock are suitable for early stages of pregnancy, they’ll grow with you as your bump grows and they’ll also do you for afterwards as well, they’re quite versatile.”
“All the brands we have in stock are more slow fashion brands, very transparent to where the clothes are made and share the ethical values that we have,” Leah concluded.
