I adore pregnant women: the swollen tummy, that natural glow. Come on, I am not the only male to think there’s just a little something exciting and lovely about the pregnant female form!
Of course, it helps when wonderful mothers-to-be are not wearing billowing tents or covered up by 500 layers of garments. Which is where a shop like Blossom – with three outlets in London, and one each in Riyadh and Dubai – comes in.
In the old days lovely ladies in the process of bringing new life into the world had little choice of what to wear and where to get hold it. There were department stores like Selfridges, high street chains like H&M and Mothercare and often, the range of clothing on offer was not exactly a la mode with a limited range of colours and styles that didn’t exactly do expectant mums any favours.
The founders of Blossom (or Blossom Mother and Child to give it the full name) asked themselves why not? Don’t women have the right to look as stylish and elegant when pregnant as they do when not?
So in 2003, two sisters from Saudi Arabia, Basma and Yasmin Alireza, and their Jordanian friend, Tania Khreino, established their boutique store of high fashion maternity wear and baby wear in London.
Tired of drab pregnant clothes, bored of the lack of options (“It began because we were shocked by how little there was for pregnant women in Britain compared with the US,” Basma has said) and spotting a gap in the market, the fashionable, highly educated and already successful trio saw no reason why pregnant women should not look great too. “We discussed opening a maternity store which sold funky and trendy clothes, and this idea developed into a mother and child store,” explains Basma, a lawyer and private equity specialist who is effectively Blossom’s ceo. “We brought in the best of everything that we could find for pregnant women.”
Their first shop in Walton Street, SW3, their knack for business and their eye for what expectant well-heeled mothers wanted created such a buzz that Blossom has, well, blossomed ever since.
What the Alirezas and Khreino (Yasmin is the cfo and Tania is the buying and creative director) have done is to create not only an affordable line of fashionable clothes under their own label and get top designers to do maternity wear, but also create a boutique and wholly personalised shopping experience.
The Walton Street and Marylebone High Street stores are calming, friendly places featuring wood floors, comfy sofas and cups of herbal tea. Evening appointments are even on offer at the former. So it’s a sanctuary from the outside world as well as a place a to shop.
And then there’s what you actually shop for. “More and more women want to preserve their sense of style during their pregnancies. We created Blossom to cater to the fashion-conscious expectant mother and all her lifestyle needs,” Khreino says. That means glamorous eveningwear, gorgeous daywear, jeans of all kinds even some knitwear. So think designer labels like Chloe, Missoni, Sonia Rykiel, Juicy Couture. Think established designers like Gharani Strok, Alice Temperley and Marilyn Moore working closely with Blossom to create comfortable and good-looking clothing for pregnant women. Think customised jeans from the likes of Seven for all Mankind, Paper Denim & Cloth Jeans and Blue Cult, Italian brand Notify, Serfontaine and Citizens of Humanity.
It’s all rather impressive and has been a service soon-to-be mums have loved and gone for in a big way since Blossom began.
The Blossom Collection itself is all about comfort combined with styles from the latest catwalk fashions adapted and custom-suited to the pregnant body featuring basics as well as evening and day wear. “The Blossom woman revels in her femininity and celebrates her pregnancy with confidence and style,” say the sisters. There’s even extremely stylish lingerie that no husband would mind buying for his pregnant wife.
And it doesn’t stop there. Not only does Blossom do maternity wear but it also stocks gorgeous designer baby clothes, maternity accessories and gifts. The the trio have succeeded in making the store and the Blossom brand a place where mums-to-be and new mums can connect and learn about baby massage, yoga, specialist spa products and more, with a gorgeous website and online shop. Yasmin says that they always wanted the store to offer the whole lifestyle for a mother by connecting her to all the groups and activities she can be a part of. So really, what’s not to love?
Today, just six years after they began Tania, Yasmin and Basma have built an amazingly successful brand and concept that continues to go from strength to strength.
In Dubai, at the world’s largest shopping centre, The Dubai Mall, they have opened a Blossom boutique. In Riyadh, they’ve opened an even larger 280-square-metre boutique in Centria Mall for pregnant women, mothers and children. It is the first of its kind bringing their unique vision to the Middle East and offering a truly luxurious, comprehensive shopping experience for mothers.
If you’re a pregnant woman, or if like me you are man who loves pregnant women, and seeing them show off the beauty of creation in all its splendour then Blossom Mother and Child, is the one-stop-shop for you. I can tell you that I bought my partner an evening gown from the Blossom collection while she was six months pregnant and I stayed in her good books throughout the last three!
CONTACT
LONDON
164 Walton Street
Tel: +44 20 7589 7500
LONDON
69 Marylebone High Street
Tel: +44 20 7486 6089
LONDON
31 Wimbledon High Street
Tel: +44 20 8947 7106
DUBAI
The Dubai Mall,
Tel: +971 4434 0103
RIYADH
Centria Mall
Tel: +966 012 177 549
