Keeping up with Claudia

Put away the tracksuit bottoms. ‘School Run Chic’ demands super-model levels of style — heaping more pressure on us mere mortals, writes Vickie Maye.

WE CAN blame Demi Moore for it. She bore her bare, pregnant bump for Vanity Fair — and so the obsession began.

We wanted celebrity pregnancies — and we couldn’t get enough of them. Where once pregnant women hid away in oversized tents, now being with-child was something to be flaunted with pride.

Victoria Beckham paved the way, bandying her bumps (though later, Designer Victoria hid her pregnancies under oversized ponchos).

Then came the Demi copycats. Jessica Simpson, Britney, Christina Aguilera, Cindy Crawford, Myleene Klass, Monica Bellucci, Claudia Schiffer — all revealed their bumps in publications from Vanity Fair to Vogue to Glamour.

Others turned their pregnancies into fashion statements — Beyoncé in skintight black on Hollywood red carpets, Natalie Portman accepting her Oscar in a designer maternity gown.

It was only a matter of time before we turned our attention to celebs post-baby: how fat they still were, how skinny they had suddenly become (a tummy tuck post C-section surely?).

These days, we’ve moved on again. Fast forward four years from the hospital steps — and it’s all about the school run.

It’s a time of the morning every mother knows shows her at her most frazzled, most disorganised. So if a celeb can manage to look her best at this ungodly hour… well, then surely she can do anything.

Enter Elle Macpherson, Stella McCartney and Claudia Schiffer — and the fashion trend stylists call ‘School Run Chic’.

When Elle, Stella and Claudia signed their children up for the same north London school, it became a fashion face-off as they dressed for their public, promoting TV shows, fashion lines — and themselves of course. Ultimately though, like every female, they dressed for other women.

Stella played it cool, predominantly in her own designs. Elle vamped it up in fur stoles, 70s Farrah Fawcett curls and PVC leggings. And Claudia appealed to the everywoman in cashmere and jeans. Though, of course, she is nothing like the rest of us.

While we do our make-up in the car on the way to office after we’ve frantically dropped the kids at the gates, Claudia is giving interviews to Harpers Bazaar to promote her new clothing line. “You can’t be too over-dressed or too sexy on the school run,” she tells them, without a trace of irony.

The clothing line comprises expensive cashmere pieces — cable-knit sweaters costing from £250 to £1,200 — expected to appeal to busy working mums on the school run.

“I am always very busy, I have a family life... I want to wear the same outfit when I bring my children to school, then go to work with it — and in the evening I want to be able to just change accessories,” Schiffer said at the launch of the clothing line in a Paris boutique. “Effortless chic. That is the idea.”

Even Vogue and Grazia had something to add.

“It’s a clever move and it looks like a natural fit,” said the former. “She was never a major player on the red carpet, but I think she has really come into her own on the school run,” agreed the latter.

And so the school gates became something of a catwalk. Albeit a casual version.

School Run Chic is all about finding a stylish way to dress down. And, like natural makeup, it has to appear effortless (even if it takes hours to nail the look).

School Run Chic is not just confined to London, of course. Sarah Jessica Parker sports a more laidback version of the look in New York, stylish in Uggs, while Kate Hudson does it LA-style in chic, summer dresses.

So as we prepare to send our children off for another academic year, has School Run Chic reached Irish shores?

We have more sense, thinks Jessie Collins, editor of Irish Tatler.

“Whether there is the same competition at the school gates over here I am not so sure,” she says. “Personally I would rather use the school gates as a place to form bonds with other mothers that could really be rewarding than for a demonstration of my style nous — we all want to look well but not at the expense of making a good friend or ally.”

We aren’t like these famous women, Collins adds. So just as we can’t have a washboard stomach weeks after giving birth — we live in a world where money is an object, after all — nor can we aspire to Elle’s school gate style.

“The main thing to remember about these impeccable-looking women such as Elle or Claudia Schiffer who do the school run looking perfect is that a) they are supermodels, b) do not get out of the house looking like that with no help, and c) it’s part of their job/image/persona to maintain this glossy veneer. That said, you can get inspiration from Elle’s and Claudia’s approach to school run dressing. Mostly they do it comfortably and chicly. The whole Claudia Schiffer knitwear range is about ease which is a good thing.

“Their looks are fairly practical with pumps or boots and jeans and jumpers being a staple fallback.”

At the end of it all, School Run Chic boils down to just one thing: more pressure on women. It’s no different to the 1950s technicolour housewife, or the more recent myth that we can have it all — the career, the kids, the perfect life.

“Obviously other women and mums are fascinated by the ability to pull a good look off at the gates but I think for lots of working women, be they in the home or outside it, it’s not highest on their list of priorities,” says Collins. “Getting the kids to school with their clothes on, teeth brushed and lunches in tow is pretty much a Herculean achievement.

“To add the pressure of looking fully groomed on top of this is an extra strain most women don’t need.”

Once, dropping the kids off in the morning was simple. Let’s keep it that way.