I’ve been a size 8. I’ve been a size 16. And through every single one of those sizes, one thing has stayed exactly the same: high street clothing has never fit me properly. Maybe I’ve just got unusual proportions. Maybe jeans are simply meant to sit slightly wrong on everyone, and we’ve all just accepted it. I genuinely don’t know. What I do know is that I have a tailor I trust just down the road, and my system for buying clothes is: get the tall version of everything, then have it shortened. Which does make you wonder, who the hell are these clothes actually made for?!

The Invention of the “Standard” Woman

Until the mid-20th century, most clothes were either custom-made or, more commonly, made at home, standardised sizes or off-the-rack clothing as we know it today did not exist. Most people bought one set of garments and very rarely bought new clothes. Most women even wore the clothes they already had, their “sunday best”, to their own weddings. According to Seamwork, “ready-to-wear” clothing only appeared in the 1800s, first for men’s military uniforms and eventually expanding into the domestic market.

“Women’s Measurements for Garment and Pattern Construction”, Ruth O’Brien and William C Shelton, 1941, National Agricultural Library

In 1939, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) measured nearly 15,000 women to determine what the average woman’s body looked like in a study called Women’s Measurements for Garment and Pattern Construction. Ryanne Pilgeram attributes this study to the rising number of women participating in agriculture in the United States and their previously unneeded demand for standardised uniforms. Another contributing factor was losses in the garment industry due to rising returns and poor fit. Because of this, the USDA studied the weight and 58 body measurements of 14,698 women across seven states in the US, including some very unusual measurements such as elbow girth and ankle height. Initially, the sizing settled on seven distinct body types requiring nine separate size combinations for a single measurement, which was completely impractical to manufacture.

Unfortunately, these measurements were skewed from the start. The women hired for the study were paid a wage for their services, so most of these measurements were drawn from working-class women, and their averages simplified diverse human bodies to fit factory-made vanity sizes. Moreover, Fashion Magazine points to a very narrow demographic in which women of colour were not even considered in these measurements.

Later down the line, in 1958, the Mail Order Association of America asked the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop a standard sizing system for women’s bodies, which, with a few tweaks, resulted in the first set of so-called vanity sizes. Because of the complicated system proposed in 1939, a “standard” body was developed using data from servicewomen: women were given 32 sizes, ranging from 7 to 42. Of course, as Kathleen Fasanella points out, these women were among the fittest people in the country and, thus, an odd basis for a size chart meant to represent all women.

What the Hell is Grading?

So by 1958, the industry had its “standard”, a set of numbers built from an unrepresentative sample, smoothed into something that could be printed on a label and sold as fact. But a size chart alone doesn’t make a garment. To this day, someone still has to turn “size 12” into an actual pattern, and “size 16” into another, and most companies don’t want to redesign the garment from scratch each time.

The Female Archetypes, Shirt Patterns

That’s where grading comes in: Grading is the process manufacturers use to take one perfected pattern, the base or sample size, and mathematically scale it up or down to produce every other size in a range, rather than designing each size individually. Grade rules are based on general body-measurement data such as those established in 1958, and determine exactly how much each point, chest, waist, hip, sleeve, changes from one size to the next.

As we all know, our bodies don’t grow uniformly in every direction. If we gain weight, our shoulders don't necessarily widen the way our midsection might. Shoulder width, hip circumference, and torso length all change at different rates. So grading has to be based on a set of assumptions about how the average body changes shape as it grows. Once again, our clothing is made for a “standard” that doesn’t really exist, it’s just an average, a mathematical extrapolation from a single sample body. We all know that one woman’s “size 12” and another woman’s “size 12” can look drastically different.

The Female Archetypes, Pattern Cutting

Moreover, standard practice in the fashion industry discourages grading more than two sizes away from the original pattern in either direction. Beyond that, the proportions no longer reliably reflect how a body that size is actually shaped. This means that the further you are from the sample size, the less the size chart's internal logic reflects how a real body at that size looks.

Since the 1950s, average sizing has shifted dramatically. According to Textile School, a 1958 “size 16” measured roughly a 28.5-inch waist, today’s equivalent is closer to 36 inches. Because of this, the original size standard was withdrawn in 1983, and brands have been setting their own arbitrary numbers ever since. And this is where our problem lies: The standard was never perfect to begin with, but at least it was consistent. Now a size 10 can mean something completely different at every store.

The Problem Was Never Your Body

So what’s the solution? At The Female Archetypes, we are tackling the problem in two ways. Firstly, we do something most companies (especially the ones with the resources to do it properly) don't: we fit our clothes on multiple models across our size range, rather than perfecting one sample size and grading everything else up or down from it. Our larger sizes are fitted to larger-fit models, not mathematically extrapolated from a smaller one.

The Female Archetypes, Fit Session

Secondly, and this is the more crucial point, our clothes are built with adjustability in mind. Grading, or even multiple fit models, do not account for a body changing shape within a single day. It has no mechanism for a body that’s a different shape before and after lunch, on day 12 of a cycle versus day 24, six weeks postpartum versus six months. Perimenopause belongs on that same list, too. During perimenopause and menopause, the gradual decline in oestrogen is associated with real, well-documented shifts in body composition, including a tendency for weight to redistribute toward the abdomen. We rarely think to include this life stage in conversations about changing bodies. A size chart makes no distinction between any of this. It grades the same body, at every stage, as if none of it ever happened.

At The Female Archetypes, our clothes will adjust to your body exactly how you want them to fit, without having to battle a size chart.

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Written by Jasmine Niblett, 20.08.2026

My doctor said something recently that’s stuck with me ever since: “We spend our whole lives trying to figure out our hormones, and just as we get there, menopause makes us start all over again.” It’s true. Fatigue, cramps, bloating, mood swings, sleep that won’t cooperate, appetite that won’t behave, most of us are constantly trying to manage our hormones, right until perimenopause resets everything again and we’re lost again.

The latest proposed solution is a practise called cycle syncing. Cycle syncing proposes that if you adapt your lifestyle and eating habits to the phase of your menstrual cycle, you can mitigate its effects. Somewhere in the last few years, cycle syncing went from a niche wellness concept to a full TikTok category. Eat differently in your luteal phase. Train differently in your follicular phase. Schedule big meetings around ovulation, rest around your period. An entire content genre now exists to tell you exactly how to live according to which week it is.

But how much of this is actually helpful, and how much is just another trend that puts pressure on us women to be responsible for things we can’t control?

The Origins of Cycle Syncing

According to Women’s Health, cycle syncing was originally developed for elite athletes and first reported on by them in 2020, while Holland & Barrett suggest the term was first coined by functional nutritionist Alisa Vitti in her 2014 book, WomanCode. A woman’s cycle typically lasts about 28 days, though many experience significant variation (this is important since research has found that irregular cycles impact exercise and diet). Across this cycle, we move through four phases: menstrual, follicular, ovulation, and luteal, during which our hormones, most notably oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone, rise and fall significantly. Olympic athletes began meticulously tracking their cycles and training in line with them to chase marginal gains in performance.

The purported scientific backing gives cycle syncing a credibility that’s rare among the wellness advice flooding the internet, which is a large part of its appeal. And the underlying premise isn’t in dispute: hormones do shift our energy, mood and stress across the cycle and across life stages. It feels only natural, then, to adapt our habits accordingly. Baylor Scott & White Health suggests cycle syncing may be particularly useful through perimenopause, noting that as oestrogen begins to drop, it can leave you feeling tired and unmotivated. Healthline also names a range of conditions including polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, premenstrual syndrome, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and premenstrual exacerbation (PME) that cycle syncing could be beneficial for.

However, research outcomes aren’t as hard and fast as some might want you to believe. As early as 2022, CNN reported that the four-phase framework cycle syncing relies on is a simplification, clinical and scientific research typically works with two primary phases, not the four popularised online. Much of the specific advice attached to cycle syncing, what food to eat and which workouts to do, is more prescriptive than the science supports. Despite how confidently cycle syncing is presented online, there’s no direct research evaluating whether cycle syncing itself actually produces the benefits it claims, and the older research it draws on is genuinely mixed.

So what’s actually helpful here, and what’s just adding another layer of rules and restrictions to an already difficult area of our lives?

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Exercise and Fitness

When it comes to exercise, exercise physiologist Dr Alyssa Olenick says it is most helpful to think in two phases alongside scientific advice: the follicular phase, the first two weeks of your cycle, including menstruation and ovulation, and the luteal phase, the final two weeks. Although, of course, the length of a cycle is individual to each woman, and not every woman will have a four-week cycle. Olenick notes that while menstruation and ovulation are often perceived as distinct phases, there is little evidence to support training differently across these phases, though symptoms may vary among the four phases.

The research backs this up. Emma Hogan notes that hormonal shifts across the cycle may cause fluctuations in metabolism, body temperature, and injury risk, with the strongest evidence for body temperature, real changes, but not ones that necessarily translate into a worse workout. Women’s Health goes further, citing evidence that while a long-term decline in hormones (aka menopause) can affect muscular adaptation, short-term monthly fluctuations don’t have a significant effect and that following a generic cycle-syncing plan could, in some cases, work against your fitness goals rather than for them. This means it is very much a case of doing what feels good for you, giving yourself a break if you need it, or working out if it will make you feel better.

Harvard, in collaboration with the Apple Women’s Health Study, sums it up simply: exercise is beneficial at every stage of the cycle. The most useful approach isn’t a phase-based training plan, it’s moving in whatever way feels good and possible for your body that day.

Food and Nutrition

Plenty of creators and advisors talk about tailoring your diet to your cycle, but there’s far less clarity on what that actually looks like compared to, say, cycle-specific workouts (see Emily Pfender et al.).

Many widely trusted sources, including the London Clinic of Nutrition and Holland & Barrett, have published comprehensive guides on which foods and supplements are particularly beneficial or necessary at each phase of your cycle. In their medically reviewed article, H&B’s medically reviewed advice is that syncing your diet with your cycle might help support your body’s natural processes and ease PMS symptoms over the course of the month. The London Clinic of Nutrition goes further, suggesting the menstrual phase is a good time to avoid heavily processed foods, alcohol, spicy foods and sugar, since these may worsen inflammation-related period pain, and that prioritising magnesium-rich foods during the follicular phase may help ward off period pain later in the cycle.

The science behind this is quite mixed. Scientific research by Anna M. Gorczyca et al. has found plausible links between macronutrient intake and menstrual cycle phases. But a review of the wider literature by Emily Pfender et al. discovered that findings on energy and nutrient intake across the menstrual cycle were inconsistent, largely because most studies don’t account for how active someone is day-to-day, which affects appetite and metabolism regardless of hormones.

So, as with everything, it’s worth taking everything with a grain of salt and, most importantly, trust your intuition. Notice how you actually feel. Test a suggestion if it’s appealing. But none of this is fixed law, and intuitive eating, paying attention to what your body is actually asking for, will tell you more than any phase-based chart will.

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What is most valuable about cycle awareness?

Not the rules. Not the colour-coded calendars telling you exactly what to eat, lift or schedule on a Wednesday. What’s actually useful is much simpler: paying attention.

Knowing your cycle won’t solve everything, but it can help you understand the signals your body has been giving you all along.

Some days that means going for a run. Some days it means cancelling your plans and getting an early night. Neither is wrong. Either way, the point stands: your body isn’t the same every day, and it was never supposed to be treated like it is.

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Written by Jasmine Niblett, 13th August 2026

We are so happy to announce that The Female Archetypes is now partnered with Making for Change and will be producing our clothes at their Poplar Works in East London.

Making for Change is a programme that originated within The Portal Centre for Social Impact at London College of Fashion. Making for Change was established by the Ministry of Justice and London College of Fashion, UAL in a women’s prison in 2014: “The project aimed to increase well-being and reduce reoffending rates by equipping participants with professional skills and qualifications within a supportive environment. The programme is still operating in HMP Downview.” Making for Change’s vision is to use fashion and creativity to inspire and facilitate positive social change and social impact.

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Beginning with our most recent Summer Collection, Making for Change’s team, consisting of their core production team and graduates from their training programs, will produce The Female Archetypes clothing in small batches right here in the heart of London, supporting the East London Fashion District.

Our most recent SS26 collection

Alice’s motivation for this partnership

Our founder, , was invited along with and Anna Ellis, the Head of Business Development at Making for Change, on Shay Kaur Greval’s BBC Radio London show to announce this exciting new collaboration. When asked why it was important for Alice to partner with Making for Change, Alice gave a very frank and honest answer.

Anna Ellis (left) and Alice Holland-Lu (right) live at BBC Radio London

To Alice, this collaboration felt personal. She emphasised how important it is to her that The Female Archetypes offers flexible work and opportunities, especially for mothers, since her experience in the fashion industry was that she wasn’t afforded that flexibility. When she had her two children, she felt sidelined by her former employer. She still wanted to contribute to the economy and use her brain. While she expressed how much she loves her children, she said she knows she is a better mother when she’s out, interacting and creating. This is why she wants to create change and offer opportunities to mothers who want to work but need flexibility and part-time roles.

“And quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter if you’re using your brain at 3 o’clock in the morning when you’re breastfeeding. Really, sometimes it’s the best work because it’s quiet, you know?”

- Alice Holland-Lu

Alice even opened up about her experience with postnatal depression, admitting that she “almost didn’t make it.” She explained that this experience had a profound impact on her life and has made her much more empathetic about the fact that we all go through our own struggles and challenges.

“And sometimes these struggles are circumstantial. It’s not of our own making. So I think that wherever you’ve come from, it shouldn’t be a barrier to where you want to go.”

- Alice Holland-Lu

The Story behind Making for Change

As you can tell, Making for Change is not your typical manufacturer. In 2014, the project started as a manufacturing and training unit in a women’s prison. The idea behind the project was not only to teach skills, but to equip participants with a vocational qualification. This real-world practice, applied to real customers, rather than theory-based learning, gives these women the confidence to use their skills and work for other employers in the future.

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Now, the project has extended to also serve other women “who may be coming from more challenged backgrounds,” as Anna puts it. Alongside the manufacturing units at the women’s prison, they have a manufacturing unit at Poplar Works in East London, which supports the East London Fashion District. Here, they have a similar setup: the women start with training, gain their vocational qualifications, and once they have graduated, they can be embedded in Making for Change’s core production team.

Here they can take their training and gain even more experience by making garments for designers, charities, startups and students, “a real breadth of garments”.

“We only work with clients, like Alice, who have the same ethos as us. You know, you’re not just making clothes. You have to be really passionate about who’s making them. Are they having fair wages? Are the conditions fair? How is it actually helping the people who work there? “

- Anna Ellis

On the one hand, Shay pointed out that it reduces the chance of women reoffending after prison, however, Anna sees the programme as more than that. What makes Making for Change different is the work with real clients. Anna described how important it is for participants to meet the clients they are manufacturing for and to understand the value these clients see in the results.

“I can’t really express properly how much of an impact it has had on some of the women who’ve come through the prison program, but also some of the women who’ve come through our East London communities, because they may be used to their role being traditionally in the home. So for them to be able to come out and know that they have this skill and they can create something amazing. And it’s not just a project, it’s something that’s then going to be valued and sold and worn.”

- Anna Ellis

Moving Forward

Alice put it perfectly in her interview: “This partnership feels like an extension of The Female Archetypes, to be completely honest.” And this is no exaggeration. Two organisations, built from completely different starting points, arrived at the same belief: that everyone deserves a real chance to turn their life around, and this is only possible if we give them the tools and the confidence to do so.

If you want to support this journey, have a look at our most recent Summer Collection, entirely made in Poplar Works and learn more about Making for Change’s mission and work here.

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Written by Jasmine Niblett, 6th August 2026

Motherhood changes your life in ways that no one can prepare you for. Of course, there are the obvious lifestyle changes that come with having to keep another human being happy and healthy, but, more intrinsically, our bodies change in ways we could never have foreseen, our hormones change uncontrollably, and our entire psyche is turned upside down. It is easy to feel like we have lost who we truly are, who we were outside of motherhood.

A lot of you have shared with us recently that you feel lost in motherhood. All these “perfect” social media moms seem like they can handle it all: children, a full-time job, a household, all while looking perfectly fabulous while doing so. For a lot of us (and actually for a lot of those mommy influencers), that is just not our reality. And that is completely okay. We can’t all be the soft-focus Pinterest mother, in the perfectly ironed dresses, the messy bun, the styled-to-look-effortless effortlessness. And this is not what we design for at The Female Archetypes.

In Greek mythology, The Mother, Demeter was the goddess of the harvest and the changing seasons. When her daughter, Persephone, was taken from her, the earth stopped growing. When Persephone returned, everything bloomed again. I love that story because it reminds us that even a goddess wasn’t expected to be the same all the time. She had seasons. Periods of abundance and periods of grief. Times when she could give, and times when she simply couldn’t. To me, that’s the true Mother Archetype. Not someone who is endlessly nurturing or endlessly selfless, but someone whose body, energy and priorities are constantly changing. Our lives move through seasons, sometimes over years, sometimes over the course of a single day.

We design for this version of you. The you whose body isn’t the same shape it was yesterday, let alone before you had kids. And honestly? Most of us don’t have the bandwidth for a complicated outfit anyway. We can’t even finish a sentence without someone interrupting us with “muuuummmm”, let alone stand in front of a wardrobe working out what fits today. So we make getting dressed easy. One outfit, no negotiating, no changing halfway through the day. That’s it. That’s the whole idea.

So, here are 4 outfit ideas for embracing your inner Demeter, the Mother Archetype, without losing yourself in it. Clothes that support your journey through motherhood, instead of holding you back, so you can still feel like yourself while doing it.

The meeting squeezed in between school drop-off and lunch 🥐

Featuring our Adjustable Size Cotton Blazer and Adjustable Size Bootcut Jeans (soon available in a dark wash, you heard it here first). Structured enough for the meeting, adaptable enough for the version of you that was sitting at the breakfast table an hour earlier. Pair them with a bag big enough for everything from children’s snacks to your laptop, and comfortable matching flats (because, let’s be honest, most of us have retired our heels). I love adding a necktie as the finishing touch, a little styling trick borrowed from my own mom’s work wardrobe.

School run, straight off zero hours of sleep 😴

Featuring our classic Adjustable Size Wide Leg Jeans. The hidden adjustable waistband makes getting dressed in the morning that little bit easier. Add a pop of colour to an otherwise simple outfit and suddenly it looks like you’ve put far more thought into it than you actually had to.

We’re refusing to give up white, even through pasta dinners 🍝

One thing I refuse to give up, even surrounded by messy children and an equally messy house, is wearing white. Our Adjustable Size Cotton Pique Jacket and Adjustable Waist Size Cotton Pique Shorts are made from 100% cotton, a fabric that’s designed to be worn, washed and worn again and again. Because white shouldn’t be reserved for special occasions. I refuse to let what I am wearing dictate my day and especially what I eat. The fit is taken care of by our adjustable design, the tomato sauce can be dealt with by Vanish Oxi Action. Finish the look with a pair of trainers and some small hoops (emphasis on small, little hands have a habit of grabbing anything that dangles).

The dress that skips the negotiation 👗

No sucking in, no “does this photograph well?”, no negotiation. Built-in give where you need it, before you’ve even realised you need it. Our Adjustable Waist Size Denim Dress (also available in white piqué cotton) is perfect for these hot summer days we’ve been having. Lightweight, breathable and adjustable, it’s the kind of piece you can throw on in the morning and not think about again. Add a pair of sandals (I especially love these fisherman ones) and you’re done. Some dresses really do speak for themselves.

At the end of the day, the “Mother Archetype” can’t be contained in a mood board.

What we do know is this: motherhood changes your body. Sometimes by the year, sometimes by the day, sometimes even by the hour. We simply make clothes that don’t punish you for it.

How has getting dressed changed for you through motherhood? We’d love to hear your experience in the comments.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 31.07.2026

This past weekend, the long-anticipated Christopher Nolan epic The Odyssey was finally released. As soon as it was announced that this movie was in the works, everyone had an opinion on it. Unfortunately, the casting of Lupita Nyong’o has been amongst the most controversial moves, causing even Elon Musk to show off his knowledge of Greek Mythology. Especially attacking Black actress Nyong’o, who was cast as Helen of Troy, and transgender actor Elliot Page, who was cast as Sinon, Odysseus’s cousin, Musk began his X (Twitter) commentary as early as February.

This discussion and especially the commentary of classicist Prof Daniel Mendelsohn, the author of a translation of Homer’s epic poem, on which the film is based, led me to reflect on the power that beauty held in Ancient Greek civilisation and continues to hold today. In a response to Musk in The Telegraph, Mendelsohn argued, “I think it’s a deliberate choice, it’s a provocative choice and, one could argue, it’s consonant with the concern of the Troy myth, which is how to think about beauty. One of the points of the myth is to get you to think about beauty and its effects.” This article will deliberate on this: What do we see as beautiful? How can beauty be weaponised both by those who possess it and those who perceive it? Is beauty simply a concept created by vanity, or is there something more tangible to it?

Elon’s New-Found Interest in Greek Mythology

In May, Musk affirmed conservative commentator Matt Walsh in saying, “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is the most beautiful woman in the world. But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave the most beautiful woman role to a white woman.” Taking it even further, Musk also affirmed the conservative account C3 in saying, “The destruction of the Odyssey by Nolan and the Left isn’t just about a movie. It’s about Western Civilisation. The Greeks were its foundation. From Democracy to Art to Philosophy to Culture. The Left wants to destroy Western Civilisation and everything that helped create it.” Ultimately, Musk is claiming that Nolan is not only featuring a diverse cast to appeal to award juries but also bringing down an entire civilisation with it. As Mendelsohn aptly puts it, “Who knew that Elon Musk knew so much about the Greek legends?”

Most of us hopefully know that Musk has no idea what he is talking about, since, as Jimmy Kimmel joked on his show, “If you really want to get into it, Helen of Troy was half bird. Helen was the daughter of Zeus, (…) who disguised himself as a swan so he could mate with a human woman who then laid an egg and out hatched Helen of Troy (…) This is made up (…) So it makes no difference to anyone but crazy angry people what colour she was.” And, perhaps more importantly, Helen of Troy is a mythological figure who, while remaining important in literature and the classics, is not a verified historical figure.

But beyond this rather unnecessary discussion, we need to have a different conversation. Why was Helen perceived as beautiful, and how much agency did this beauty really afford her?

Helen In The Ancient Text

There are differing opinions on Helen and her character, with some such as George J. Ryan characterising her as “wanton, self-centered, deceitful, bewitching and beguiling”, and others such as Hanna M. Roisman describing her as “a complex and suffering figure with a good mind, who strives for autonomy, expression, and belonging, within and despite the many constraints to which she is subject.” She is and has always been a controversial figure in popular discourse, while she holds a fascination for many. Of course, the irony of this obsession with Helen and her beauty is that she doesn’t actually feature as much in the happenings of the Odyssey as some might want you to believe. There are only a handful of proper appearances of Helen in Homer’s works: 4 in the Iliad and 2 (possibly 3) in the Odyssey (this is a point of debate among classicists). But still, she is seen as the catalyst for major events of Homer’s epic, possessing “The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships.” This raises the question: What was it that made Helen so beautiful? And can we really blame the actions of the men around her on her appearance alone?

To answer the first part of this question, we must look to the descriptions of Helen in the original text. Kenneth J. Reckford claims that Homer does not explicitly describe her beauty, though other characters imply that Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world in their eyes. Instead, “Her own radiance emanates from what she says and does (…) The most that is said directly of Helen is that ‘she is terribly like the immortal goddesses to look upon.’” Beauty is projected onto her by the way men perceive her. It seems the way she carries herself and her confidence go a long way toward making the other characters believe she is as beautiful as she is. Even the Helen-critical George J. Ryan describes her as “a woman supremely confident of herself, of her beauty and charm.” This shows that her confidence must be part of what makes her attractive to the men of the Odyssey.

Helen’s beauty, described only through the actions and reactions it provokes, never through the narrator himself, is what makes her valuable to the men around her, and valuable in a very specific sense: not as something she owns, but as something they get to claim, dispute, and defend. Roisman argues that in Homer’s world “women are property, to be taken, traded, quarrelled over,” and that “the idea of woman as possession and the idea of woman as loved blend together.” Even the readings that grant Helen some agency in the fall of Troy still work within a text where the men around her treat her as an object first, something to be fought over, not consulted. Beauty in the Odyssey only exists once a man has affirmed it. Whether beauty can be a weapon in its owner’s hands is a question the myth and the men around her never let her answer.

Three thousand years on, the terms of who gets to make that call haven’t moved much. When Elon Musk backed claims that Lupita Nyong’o couldn’t be “the most beautiful woman in the world,” and by extension shouldn’t play Helen, he wasn’t making an aesthetic judgment so much as trying to assert his authority to hand that title out.

A Different Definition of Beauty

While Musk seems to have taken the archaic message of The Odyssey literally, Nolan’s new adaptation sheds new light on the ancient text, one that can actually be useful in today’s day and age. Critics have noted that Helen is, for the first time, allowed some defiance of her own, rather than existing purely as something fought over. Yet unsympathetic reviews concede the film doesn’t fully commit to that reframing: Helen remains peripheral to a story still driven by the men around her. If Homer’s Helen was valuable only insofar as men affirmed her, Nolan’s Helen is more visible, but not yet, by most accounts, given full credit for her beauty.

Beauty holds real power, in politics, in the workplace, everywhere. Research consistently shows beauty affects hiring, promotions, elections and sentencing. Yet still women are expected to navigate impossible contradictions: being attractive but effortless, stylish but not vain, lest we be painted with the same brush as Helen, “wanton, self-centred, deceitful, bewitching and beguiling”. At once, men still assume the role of judge while simultaneously blaming us for their actions in response to said beauty (“she was asking for it” rhetoric being the first to come to mind).

Allegedly, Musk’s own former partner, Ashley St Clair, has said she felt violated after his AI chatbot Grok was used to generate sexualised images of her without her consent, one case among thousands, as Grok was allegedly found to be producing roughly one nonconsensual sexualised image per minute at the height of the scandal. This is, in the end, the same war. Helen never asked to be fought over; her beauty was decided, disputed and avenged entirely by men who never consulted her. Three thousand years later, the battlefield has moved from the walls of Troy to a comment thread, but the logic hasn’t changed: a woman’s beauty is real, is powerful, and still isn’t completely hers to wield. It is all too often claimed by those who perceive it.

So, is beauty vanity, or something more tangible? The Greeks would have laughed at the question. They built an entire civilisation’s worth of myth around the premise that beauty was never trivial, never just decoration, it was a form of power serious enough to start wars over. What they perhaps failed to reckon with, and what Helen’s long silence in what is seemingly her own story makes clear, is that power exercised on someone’s behalf is not the same as power held.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 20.07.2026

The World Before Synthetics

For thousands of years, the clothes we wore came from the world around us. Cotton from fields. Linen from flax. Wool from sheep. Silk from silkworms. While this was initially due to a lack of alternatives, these materials also had genuine functionality. In their pure form, natural fibres naturally decompose over time, minimising their long-term impact on the planet. Moreover, they work naturally with the human body, each in their own ingenious way: silk preserves the oils in our skin, wool is excellent against odour since it is antibacterial (see this fascinating study by Tomislav Ivankovic et al.), and linen is great for hot and humid weather. Then, in less than a century, we replaced them with plastic.

Today, almost 70% of the fibres used in fashion are synthetic. We often accept that as progress. But was replacing natural fibres with plastic really an improvement, or simply a cheaper way to make more clothes?

(I must note here that, of course, these natural materials have their dark histories too. Cotton is deeply intertwined with colonial exploitation, slavery and environmental degradation. Silk is tied to child labour and involves boiling or gassing silkworms alive in their cocoons to extract the intact fibres, which is why many vegans refuse to wear the material. This article is not arguing that natural materials are always perfect. There are, however, ethical sources for most of these fabrics, which include recycled and organic production. For those who are interested, Ethical Consumer has a very easy-to-understand overview here.)

The Invention That Changed Everything

Source: Wikimedia Commons, “Sample of first DuPont nylon, December 1939 - Heritage Exhibit - Longwood Gardens”

In 1938, the chemical company DuPont announced that its researcher, Wallace Carothers, had invented the first commercially successful synthetic thermoplastic polymer (in other words, a moldable, human-made material): Nylon. According to Hillary S. Kativa, nylon was the product of 11 years of research involving more than 230 DuPont scientists and technicians. On a practical level, this new product was cheaper and easier to care for for the consumer. However, the real reason DuPont funded this project was the looming threat of World War II.

The United States relied heavily on Japan for silk, which was needed for consumer products such as women’s stockings but also for defence purposes such as military parachutes. As trade relations between the US and Japan began to deteriorate leading up to the war, DuPont sought a way to replace natural silk with a cheap, domestically produced alternative.

Source: Flashbak, “Bri-Nylon and the Tragic Story of Nylon’s Inventor Wallace H Carothers”

With the support of a very strong marketing machine, the invention of nylon changed fashion as we know it. DuPont described it as a “miracle fabric” that didn’t rip, didn’t wrinkle, dried quickly, and was perfect for almost any weather. As Kativa describes, nylon soon led to acrylic, polyester, and spandex, which in turn “gave rise to a mass-market fashion defined by sweater sets and wash-and-wear suits.”

Source: ResearchGate, “Designing for the Land of Affluence: The Postwar American Dream through Synthetic Fabrics”

While Untouched World claims that polyester only officially overtook cotton production in 2000, global fibre production (see Textile Exchange) shows that combined synthetic materials were already commanding a massive share of global volume by the late 1980s, demonstrating their revolutionary impact well before the turn of the millennium. In the last 20 years, polyester production has doubled, and 69% of all fashion materials are synthetic, according to Collective Fashion Justice.

Unlike cotton or wool, which required land, were subject to unpredictable weather, and seasonal harvests, polyester could be spun endlessly in a lab at a fraction of the cost. Simultaneously, Fast Fashion brands normalised disposability, retraining consumers to view clothing as short-lived purchases rather than long-term investments. Cheapness became the primary metric of value for the modern shopper. While of course a £3 T-Shirt only feels affordable if you ignore how often you need to replace it. This trend, in turn, led to severe environmental degradation, trillions of microplastics in our oceans, and tons of unrecyclable textile waste.

Source: Panafrican Climate Justice Alliance, “Addressing Fashion and Textile Waste Through Sustainable Water and Waste Management”

What This “Miracle Fabric” Actually Does To Your Body

By now, we all know the devastating effects these everlasting synthetic materials have had on our planet. But even without this, synthetic fibres are not all they were made out to be. While DuPont promised a material that was easy to care for, today’s polyester pills and loses its shape incredibly quickly. Moreover, this “easy care” fabric sheds microplastics with every wash, which is harmful not only to our environment and water supplies but also to the longevity of our clothing. In comparison, cotton softens over time if cared for properly, moulding to our bodies and becoming more comfortable.

These plastics could also be potentially harmful to our bodies. Synthetics are non-porous. Unlike cotton or linen, which let air circulate, they trap heat and moisture against your skin, potentially causing your body to overheat. With heatwaves as we have been experiencing lately, this is crucial, especially to women going through menopause or perimenopause. When our bodies overheat, we sweat a lot more, and what makes this worse is that synthetic fibres attract the bacteria found in human sweat. They trap body odour, making polyester garments smell bad very quickly, even after washing. In turn, the trapped sweat and bacteria can also create a breeding ground for fungal and bacterial infections, potentially leading to heat rashes, blocked pores, and flare-ups for anyone with eczema or sensitive skin.

What is less known and maybe even more dangerous is that synthetic fabrics are heavily treated with toxic chemicals during manufacturing. This includes heavy metals, flame retardants, and formaldehydes. When you sweat, your pores open, allowing your skin to absorb these chemicals. Research by Ovokeroye A. Abafe, Stuart Harrad and Mohamed Abou-Elwafa Abdallah reveals that brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which are linked to thyroid disease, hormonal and neurological issues, may leach into sweat and be absorbed through the skin.

Our Counter-Revolution

All of this is not to scare you into throwing away all your synthetic clothes. The most sustainable wardrobe is usually the one you already have. Instead, But when the time comes to replace something, it’s worth asking a simple question: What do I actually want this fabric to do?

At The Female Archetypes, our answer has always been natural fibres, which will ultimately last you longer, be kinder to your skin and may reduce your exposure to some of the chemicals commonly used in synthetic textiles. This is why the majority of our pieces are consciously made from 100% cotton. Our only exception is our white fabric, which includes a 2–5% elastane blend. Because we intentionally use fabrics already in the supply chain, we will replace this fabric only when our current supply is fully used. We promise to always clearly label these garments so you can make an informed choice.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 06.07.2026

Step back.

Pass the mic.

No mansplaining.

No putting words in women’s mouths.

Just women speaking for themselves, about ambition, womanhood, work, and everything in between.

Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is listen.

The term “Functional Fashion” is often associated with work clothing, especially men’s safety and workwear. But why should our clothing only be functional if we are performing manual labour? Surely, clothes should work for us all the time, no matter what our job or lifestyle looks like. This is why when we use the term “Functional Fashion” at The Female Archetypes, we’re not speaking of hard hats and holster trousers, we’re talking about features that should be essential: pockets, adjustable waistbands and breathability.

Strikingly, in his novel Sartor Resartus (Latin: The Tailor Retailored), nineteenth-century Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle was the first to discuss the functionality of clothing. According to him, the only thing separating man from beast was his use of tools and, thus, the only reason humans began wearing clothes in the first place was their ability to hold those tools in pockets. While this seems like quite an outlandish statement, it does seem logical that clothes were first and foremost intended to be functional.

Still, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought a jacket online, only to find that the pockets were completely fake. Sure, it’s easy to say “pockets bulk out the silhouette,” but why are we simply accepting this excuse? Why aren’t we challenging brands to create clothing that is both functional and beautifully designed? There’s no better feeling than trying on a dress that you love and discovering that it has pockets. So why is this simplest of features that is universal to menswear, not as common in women’s clothing?

The History of Pockets

According to Hannah Carlson, Pockets, unlike bags or sacks, were first added to men’s clothing almost 500 years ago. As opposed to women, who had seperate pouches tied around their waists and worn under their petticoats, pockets allowed men easy public access to their belongings.

This distinction occurred because access to money, keys and personal belongings was seen as a symbol of independence. For centuries, most women had almost no legal access to property or income. If they were married, their possessions and their autonomy were considered their husbands’ property. Thus, there was a belief that women didn’t need pockets since they wouldn’t have anything significant to store in them anyway.

Functionality in clothing has always been tied to power. Men’s clothing was functional because it demonstrated that they were rich enough to customise their clothing to their needs. For women, however, functional clothing often implied that they were having to perform manual labour, a signal they were not of ‘high status.’ In this way, something as simple as a pocket becomes a fascinating example of how power and its symbols are layered, contradictory, and carefully enforced.

Women Start Pushing Back

Jumping forward to the late 1800s, the Rational Dress Society demanded that women’s clothing should be as functional as men’s, inspired by the American women’s rights movement of the 1850s. Madeleine Seys claims that while “rational dress” was symbolic, it also established a “connection between physical mobility and social and political progress for women.” In this vein, the famous “Suffragette Suit” with almost six pockets became a symbol of women’s rebellion and liberation in 1910.

Then the World Wars came, and women stepped into jobs previously held by men. Suddenly, society understood that women also needed trousers, uniforms, and real pockets, and for a short moment in time, functionality was seen as a necessity for everyone.

After the wars, the cultural zeitgeist shifted toward a celebration of traditional femininity. Years of utilitarian, practical clothing gave way to a renewed emphasis on elegance, domesticity, and style. Fashion reflected this shift with narrower, tighter silhouettes that prioritised appearance over function. At the same time, the handbag industry boomed, and designers increasingly removed pockets from women’s clothing, encouraging women to rely on stylish accessories rather than functional garments.

The Mystery Solved

So if you’ve ever wondered why your jeans can’t fit your phone and you’re always having to take an extra handbag everywhere you go, now you know it’s all a matter of consumerism, power and autonomy.

At The Female Archetypes, we design our clothes with real, functional pockets, deep enough for your phone, your keys and everything else. And beyond this, our clothes are functional for every aspect of your life: beautifully designed for the office but also comfortable for your morning commute, adjustable to your fluctuating body, and accommodating to your every movement. Functionality shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be non-negotiable.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 23.02.2026

At the end of last year, a social media trend was making the rounds that I’m sure none of us could escape: the Billy Joel / Fleetwood Mac mashup. While I’m fairly certain it ruined “Piano Man” and “Silver Springs” for many of us, I did appreciate the message behind it. Some users were sharing stories of how they took a leap of faith and met the love of their life, while others moved to a different continent and built a new life. For our founder Alice, the trend reminded her of one of the most important lessons she’d learned while building her brand: sometimes you have to stop listening and start trusting your instincts.

The Fashion Industry in The Early 2010s

Alice started working in the fashion industry in 2010. She worked her way up from the shop floor to assistant buyer, to account manager, all the way to being a director and now the owner of her own company. Whilst she says she met many amazing people and loved the path she took to get to where she is now, these times were not easy for a young woman’s self-esteem: Pre-body-positivity-movement, size 8 women were being labelled fat left and right, Renée Zellweger, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Simpson were making headlines for their “overweight” bodies. You just have to watch 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada” to get an idea of what it must have been like working in the fashion industry at this time, with Anne Hathaway being described as “the smart, fat girl.”

Needless to say, the fashion industry had long normalised the idea that women must either remain a size 0 forever or constantly buy new clothes to fit their bodies. Garments simply couldn’t fit women through their body’s changes. Weight gain, pregnancy, postpartum bodies, menopause, all of it, required constant replacement. Of course, this was driven by ever-rising consumerism; fashion companies profit off consumers’ need to constantly chase the next new thing and buy into every trend that is perpetuated.

A New Era

But Alice never quite believed that was the only way.

At first, it was only a thought in the back of her mind. However, when she got pregnant and experienced first-hand how life-changing postpartum can be, she decided she would take matters into her own hands.

Founding The Female Archetypes, she set out to design adjustable clothing that adapts to real lives and real bodies, not the other way around. No longer do women have to choose between squeezing into last year’s clothes or feeling pressured to buy an entirely new wardrobe with every physical change. Instead, The Female Archetypes creates garments with thoughtfully integrated, hidden mechanisms that allow pieces to shift and adjust as our bodies do.

This goes against an industry built on rigid sizing and constant replacement. These designs acknowledge something women have always known: our bodies are not static. They evolve through work, stress, joy, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between. Alice believes clothing should be able to move through those changes with us, offering support, comfort, and confidence rather than restriction or shame.

So what?

Progress often starts by questioning what we’re told is “just the way things are” and testing whether there might be another way entirely. What Alice has learned through building her brand is that some of the most impactful decisions come from trusting instinct and lived experience and choosing to create something better because of it.

This doesn’t apply only to fashion. It can be true when your environment doesn’t fully believe in your idea, when established systems insist something isn’t possible, or when you’re told to compromise simply because “that’s how it’s always been done.” Listening inward, can feel unusual. But again and again, it’s that quiet conviction, rather than loud approval, that leads to meaningful change.

If this resonates, why not have a look (here) at our clothing designed to adapt to real lives, not unrealistic expectations. And let us know: Where in your own life are you still following rules that no longer serve you? Is there maybe a way we could be doing things better?

Most people think “sustainable fashion” starts with buying new eco-friendly pieces, organic cotton, recycled fibres and low-impact dyes. But the truth is far simpler (and far less glamorous): the most sustainable thing you can do is wear what you already own.

Sustainability isn’t built at the checkout, it’s built in the choices we make every day, how we care for our clothes, how often we rewear them, and how much use we actually get out of the pieces hanging in our wardrobe.

At The Female Archetypes, we believe sustainability is a mindset, not a marketing label. Longevity, adaptability, and conscious consumption sit at the heart of everything we design. Clothes shouldn’t be disposable or tied to a single season (or a single size), they should grow with you, last with you, and support your life, not your shopping habits.

So here are 7 Ways to Make Your Wardrobe More Sustainable Without Buying More:

1. Rewear Intentionally

Before you buy anything new, try “shopping your closet.” Most of us already own far more than we actually wear, not because we don’t like our clothes, but because we’ve stopped seeing them.

Rewearing intentionally means rediscovering the pieces you once loved and giving them new life. Style an old favourite in a way you never have before: that blouse you’ve had for years layered under a knit, that dress worn over trousers, that blazer styled open, belted, or dressed down with denim.

When you approach your wardrobe with curiosity rather than boredom, you unlock creativity and self-expression without spending a penny. Rewearing isn’t repetition, it’s reconnecting with your clothes.

2. Care Better

One of the simplest ways to make your wardrobe last is by caring for your clothes. Washing your clothes less often, air-drying instead of tumble-drying, and storing garments properly can drastically extend their lifespan. Tools like the Steamery Fabric Shavers or Clothes Doctor’s care kits can make a huge difference in keeping fabrics looking fresh without replacing them.

Think of care as a quiet form of sustainability: every gentle wash, every skipped dryer cycle helps protect the planet. When you treat what you own with intention, your wardrobe lasts longer, looks better, and becomes part of a slower, more thoughtful way of living.

3. Mind the Materials

Caring for your wardrobe starts with understanding what it’s made of. Different fabrics age, wear, and wash in completely different ways: cotton loves a gentle cycle, wool prefers a cool hand wash, and linen softens beautifully over time.

Learning to recognise fibre compositions not only helps you care better, but it also helps you decide which pieces are worth prioritising in your wardrobe. Quality materials last longer, drape better, and often grow more beautiful with age.

At The Female Archetypes, we intentionally design with durable, natural fibres for exactly this reason. Clothes made from high-quality materials don’t just look timeless, they are timeless. By understanding your fabrics, you give each garment the best chance at a long, sustainable life in your wardrobe.

4. Repair, Don’t Replace

A missing button or tiny tear isn’t a reason to throw something away, it’s an opportunity to give it new life. Visible mending, simple stitching, or even a quick visit to a local tailor can extend a garment’s lifespan for years. In a world where we’re encouraged to replace everything instantly, choosing repair is the sustainable choice.

Repairs become part of a garment’s story, a reminder that longevity is something we create, not something we buy. And when you bring your pieces to a tailor or seamstress, you’re supporting small, skilled businesses that keep traditional craft alive.

5. Reimagine Your Clothes

If you’re already comfortable repairing your clothes, you’re halfway to reimagining them. This is where creativity comes in: taking a piece you’ve had for years and seeing it with fresh eyes. An oversized shirt can become a dress for summer, a scarf can be wrapped into a top, a blazer can be belted, cropped, or layered in unexpected ways.

Upcycling doesn’t have to mean sewing an entirely new garment from scratch (unless you want it to). It can be as simple as changing buttons, shortening a hem, or adding a panel to give an old favourite a second life. These small tweaks breathe new energy into your wardrobe, keeping things feeling fresh without adding anything new.

6. Share, Swap, or Borrow

Sustainability isn’t only about what happens in your wardrobe, it’s also about what happens in your community. Sharing clothes, swapping with friends, or borrowing something special for a one-off event can dramatically reduce waste while expanding your outfit options. Think of it as a shared wardrobe: pieces circulate, memories travel with them, and nothing gathers dust.

Whether it’s a casual swap with friends, a dedicated clothing exchange, or simply lending out a favourite dress for someone’s big night, these small acts keep garments in use longer and out of landfills. They also remind us that fashion doesn’t have to be hyper-individual or hyper-consumptive. Sometimes the most sustainable choice is simply asking, “Hey, can I borrow that?”

7. Declutter Responsibly

Letting go of clothes can be just as important as caring for the ones you keep, but how you get rid of them matters. Instead of tossing pieces in the bin, choose circular paths: resell items that still have life in them, donate to charity shops, or gift pieces to friends who will love and wear them.

Decluttering responsibly isn’t about getting rid of things quickly, it’s about letting go with intention. Every garment you pass on stays in circulation longer, reduces waste, and becomes part of someone else’s story. Sustainable wardrobes aren’t built through constant buying, they’re built through mindful choices, including how we part with what no longer serves us.

The sustainable way forward

Sustainability doesn’t start in a shopping cart, it starts at home. It begins with the choices you make every morning when you open your wardrobe: to rewear, to care, to mend, to share, and to cherish what you already own.

True conscious consumption is less about buying better and more about being better, more intentional, more aware, more connected to the clothes that carry you through your life. And when you do choose to add something new, choose pieces designed to stay with you for the long run.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 19.10.2025

If you’ve been following my writing for a while, you’ll know that I strongly believe in fashion’s political significance. What we wear tells stories about who we are, what we value, and the world we live in. More than trends or aesthetics, clothing reflects entire systems of power: who gets to be seen, who is expected to change, and who is allowed comfort, beauty, or freedom.

Fashion doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it moves in rhythm with social change. Every silhouette, from the corset to the power suit, carries traces of the time it was born into, its politics, its anxieties and its ideals of womanhood. Our clothes have always mirrored society’s relationship with the female body: how it is controlled, celebrated, or commodified. This affirms Meyda Yeğenoğlu’s argument that women’s bodies are “at the centre of the techniques of colonial control and domination.”

Even in politics, women’s fashion choices are scrutinised in ways that most male politicians easily escape (though, of course, we all remember Obama’s tan suit “scandal”). Just yesterday, after Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, my feed was filled with commentary not only about his policies, but about his wife’s “unusual” fashion choices as the future “First Lady of New York.” Comments like “Where is her hijab?” and “No Muslim pyjamas?” may sit on the extreme end of the spectrum with their explicitly racist undertone, but they also contribute to the broader phenomenon of women in public life still being judged first by their appearance.

To continue on this news story, when major fashion houses or their founders engage in political funding, the stakes become even clearer. According to Time magazine, the Lauder family (of Estée Lauder) spent $2.6 million opposing Mamdani’s campaign, while New York Magazine reported that Michael Kors donated $50,000 in support of Andrew Cuomo. Whatever one thinks about the ethics of such involvement, it makes one thing undeniable: fashion has never been, and will never be, apolitical.

To look at fashion, then, is to look at history itself, not just through fabric and form, but through the shifting expectations placed upon wearers. Each era redefines what it means to be a man or a woman, and fashion, in turn, becomes the mirror that reflects those changing definitions back at us.

The 18th & 19th Centuries: Femininity as Duty

In the 18th and 19th centuries, womanhood was tightly bound to ideas of morality, modesty, and service. A “good woman” was defined by her ability to nurture, endure, and restrain, qualities that were not only social expectations but moral imperatives. Ashley Wood points out that “The social pressure to maintain the pure image of an ‘angel in the house’” stood in direct contrast with the “identification as a fallen woman.” Thus, clothing became one of the clearest ways to communicate a woman’s virtues.

The silhouettes of the time, cinched waists, layered petticoats, and laced corsets, did more than shape the body; they signified discipline, obedience, and control. To dress properly was to conform. These garments spoke of purity and self-restraint, reinforcing the belief that femininity itself was a form of moral duty.

Industrialisation and empire deepened these divides. As Britain’s global reach expanded, so too did the hierarchies of class, gender, and race that underpinned it. Middle- and upper-class women were expected to embody domestic virtue, dressed beautifully, but confined to private life, while poorer women and colonised subjects provided the invisible labour that sustained this ideal. This was even reflected in some of the textiles themselves, as Lauren Miskin points out, “The sort of irreproachable whiteness esteemed in spotless muslins became central to the establishment of gendered ideals of sexual purity as well as British identity.” The fabric of femininity, quite literally, was woven through systems of production, exploitation, and empire.

The 20th Century: Liberation, Work, and the Modern Woman

The 20th century brought revolutions in politics, work, and fashion. Each decade reflected a new negotiation between freedom and expectation, between empowerment and appearance.

The 1920s flapper discarded corsets and moral restraint alike, but she represented more an ideal than a universal reality. For a generation of mostly urban, middle-class women, loose silhouettes, short hemlines, and bobbed hair became emblems of freedom, a rebellion against their mothers’ constraints. They danced, smoked, and occupied public spaces in ways that challenged convention. Yet this liberation was uneven. Working-class women, women of colour, and those outside large cities rarely shared the same freedoms. Still, the flapper’s image captured a cultural shift: clothing became a language of rebellion, and style itself an assertion of autonomy.

By the 1940s, fashion had to adapt to the demands of war. Women stepped into workplaces and uniforms once reserved for men, trading luxury for practicality. Yet, the post-war years of the 1950s reinstated domestic ideals, characterised by full skirts, cinched waists, and polished perfection, a visual reminder that women were expected to return home once the fighting stopped.

Then came the 1970s and 80s: women entered boardrooms, universities, and parliaments in greater numbers, and the power suit became the new uniform of liberation. Sharp shoulders and tailored lines projected authority, but they also mimicked masculine codes of power, a reminder that freedom often came with the condition of conformity. In my discussion of Superfine, we saw a similar subversion of the suit aesthetic in a different context.

Throughout the century, fashion reflected a constant push and pull: women claiming space, while society quietly rewrote the boundaries of what that freedom should look like.

The 21st Century: Choice, Change, and the Fluid Body

The 21st century promised freedom and, in many ways, it delivered. Fashion became more democratic than ever before, shaped by feminism, digital culture, and the language of choice. We can dress for power, comfort, rebellion, or self-expression. Yet even this freedom exists within tension. Capitalism has learned to sell empowerment back to us, transforming liberation into lifestyle branding. The message is often less about freedom from expectation and more about buying the right version of it.

Still, something real is shifting. Conversations about body inclusivity, gender expression, and sustainability have changed how we think about clothes and the bodies that wear them. We are slowly moving away from fashion that confines, toward fashion that adapts, clothing that recognises movement, emotion, and evolution as part of life itself.

At The Female Archetypes, this belief sits at the heart of what we create. Our adjustable, functional pieces are not designed to control the body, but to honour it, through every stage, every change, every version of womanhood. If the clothing once symbolised containment, the clothes of today can symbolise release: garments that move with us rather than against us.

What Clothes Reveal About Us

If fashion portrays womanhood, shaping how women are seen, constrained, or celebrated, what does it say about us now? Today, style reflects more than aesthetic taste: it mirrors how society continues to define women’s roles, freedoms, and worth. Every era has used fabric to tell a story about what women should be. Now, we have the chance to rewrite that story ourselves.

Fashion no longer needs to dictate; it can express. It can evolve with us, reflect who we are in motion, not a fixed ideal, but a living, changing identity.

At The Female Archetypes, we believe adaptability is the new form of empowerment. Our clothes are made to move with you, to honour every version of who you are becoming. Because fashion should never restrict your evolution, it should accompany it.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 09.11.2025

Karen’s story reminds us why we exist: women’s bodies change, and fashion should change with them.

Written and edited by Jasmine Niblett, 31.10.2025

When we talk about parenthood today, its expectations, contradictions, and pressures, it’s impossible not to trace its roots back through history. Although our world looks radically different from that of the 18th century, many of the ideals that still shape our beliefs surrounding care, motherhood, and even womanhood itself were formed then.

Today, I will discuss how carework, and specifically childcare, influenced parenthood ideals during the 18th century and what this means for us today. This covers both paid care work and the less visible range of unpaid domestic care work that is often expected from women.

I must also point out that the distortion of care was worst for enslaved parents during the 18th century. They were not only denied their freedom but also the right to care for their own children. This is why I will also highlight these stark examples in history to truly grasp how care has shaped our ideas of parenthood.

The Invention of the “Natural Caregiver”

In the long 18th century, society began to cement the idea that care was a woman’s work, not just in practice, but by nature. A ‘good mother’ wasn’t simply a caretaker, she was patient, tender, and selfless by definition. Her worth was measured by her willingness to nurture, often at the expense of herself. Jane Humphries and Carmen Sarasúa suggest that this might have stemmed from religious teachings, in which it was women’s “God-given destiny” to be caring mothers.

Writers like Maria Edgeworth echoed this sentiment in literature, where a woman’s emotions, her capacity to love and sacrifice, became central to her femininity: “I can understand that there may be such a thing in nature as a jealous wife, but an unfeeling mother I cannot comprehend - that passes my powers of imagination.” This cultural script still echoes in the modern mother’s dilemma: to care, to hold it all, and to never seem tired doing so.

Childcare wasn’t seen as a full-time job; it was simply expected of mothers, often alongside helping to earn money. They were assumed to care out of instinct and ‘natural’ femininity, rather than any real understanding of children’s physical or emotional needs.

When Care Became Labour

Of course, care has never existed in a vacuum. In the 18th century, some women, particularly poorer mothers, servants and enslaved women, performed care not only for their own families but for others. Melissa Rhodes points out that wet nurses, for example, earned their living through their ability to nurture, yet were condemned for not being able to breastfeed their own children. Their maternity became a commodity.

Nowhere was this contradiction more extreme than under slavery. For example, in the 18th-century Caribbean, Black enslaved women were forced to nurse the children of their oppressors while being denied care for their own. Diana Paton demonstrates that once children were too old for their mothers to carry them on their backs while working (an extreme example of the expectations on women to perform childcare alongside work), older, unrelated women, deemed unfit for manual labour, supervised older children in large groups, preparing them for plantation work. As Emily West and R. Knight show, enslaved wet nurses’ bodies were treated as resources, their love politicised and controlled: “Once enslaved women had served their purpose as reproducers, they could be returned to field work while another lactating woman fed the children.” This is an example of why Meyda Yeğenoğlu perceives the female body as central to oppressive systems’ “techniques of domination.”

The “Mammy” stereotype that emerged from this era is still a burden on Black motherhood today. As Lesly Deschler Canossi and Zoraida Lopez-Diago note, Black mothers have long been confined to narrow roles, like “the mammy, matriarch, welfare queen, or jezebel,” denying them the same emotional range, joy, and authority that white mothers have historically been allowed.

The Shaping of Fatherhood

Men’s care, meanwhile, was reframed as provision in the 18th century: To provide financially was to care emotionally. Nancy Folbre claims that caring was not simply the work of care workers, instead, earning a wage so that one’s family could afford to be cared for was as much a “caring” occupation. Good fathers were expected to work to provide for their families as an act of care, ensuring their welfare and safety.

Yet, the 18th century also saw the beginnings of a quieter, gentler form of fatherhood. John Tosh defines 18th-century masculinity as being “about being master of one’s own house.” To achieve this ideal, fathers could not be absent from the domestic sphere. Contemporary letters describe fathers playing, being tender, and the joy of simply being present. These moments remind us that care has always been broader than we assume, it includes time, attention, responsibility, and love.

Once again, we can see how parenthood was used to control enslaved men as well as women. Enslaved fatherhood was complicated from the get-go: Fathers knew that they would not be able to provide for their children, who would be born into an exploitative system of hardship. Enslavers used fatherhood as yet another way to dehumanise enslaved men. Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh shows that, in some cases, they even dictated who would have children together, pairing people based on strength or physical traits, stripping everyone involved of their consent and choice. She also demonstrates that Black men’s power to protect their families was stripped from them since sexual violence was weaponised “to humiliate enslaved men.” Through enslavers’ disregard for slaves’ familial structures, enslaved men were forced to become disjointed from their family structures, and the resulting stereotypes about absent Black fathers still linger in harmful ways today due to this exploitation.

Why It Matters Today

Our ideas of parenthood didn’t emerge overnight, they were shaped by centuries of culture, class, and control. When we talk about modern motherhood, “having it all,” or “balancing career and care,” we’re speaking a language inherited from systems that decided long ago who has to care (or who gets to care) and who doesn’t.

Resulting from the 18th century, fathers are commonly seen as caregivers only when the mother is absent. Fathers’ main role is often to provide, not to nurture. That dynamic, though evolving, still lingers today. Men are celebrated as ‘the fun parent’ when they take time off to be with their children. Working mothers, on the other hand, are frequently penalised for doing the same, their care seen not as devotion, but as disruption.

And while many of us now discuss balance, flexibility, and fulfilment in parenthood, it’s crucial to remember that these conversations still exist within a world where care, its burdens and its freedoms, are not shared equally. The privilege to care, to nurture, protect, and be present, remains unevenly distributed, shaped by histories of race, class, and power.

Written by Jasmine Niblett 26.10.2025

Written and edited by Jasmine Niblett, 23.10.2025

Once a manufacturing powerhouse, Britain used to be the global leader in textiles and clothing throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, less than 3% of clothing worn in the UK is actually made here. Still, the label “Made in Britain” holds a level of cultural prestige, one often exploited by brands to align their products within a heritage of quality and identity. In this article, I will delve into how this major shift came to be and whether there are still brands we can support that manufacture locally.

A Short History of British Clothing Manufacturing

In its heyday, the British manufacturing industry dominated much of Scotland, Lancashire, the Midlands and the English North with spinning, weaving and tailoring. ts factories supplied both domestic markets and a growing global demand. Renowned British brands such as Viyella and Courtaulds became household names, celebrated both at home and abroad.

It’s important to keep in mind that this dominance came at a cost, especially for women and children who formed much of the underpaid and unprotected workforce, with workplace accidents being common and often deadly. While the wages were initially high, Robert Allen suggests that spinners’ high wages prompted many of the inventions and innovations of the late eighteenth century. Thus, Jane Humphries and Benjamin Schneider argue that while the demand for British textiles kept increasing workers’ wages did not rise correspondingly: “This extension of production pulled hundreds of thousands of women, children, and families into the textile labour pool, providing them with income in the medium term but also making many reliant on a sector that would have no need for their hand spinning by the end of the eighteenth century.”

Moreover, when British manufacturing ultimately declined after the Second World War, thousands of people who had managed to persevere throughout industrialisation were left without jobs and security. Globalisation, cheap overseas labour, and trade liberalisation caused the economy to shift, and British production became too expensive to compete. This trend continues till today: the UK clothing manufacturing industry continues to shrink, with projections showing revenue dropping at a drastic rate of about 6% per year. In places like Leicester, once a garment hub, the number of factories has plunged from 1.500 to fewer than 100.

What “Made In Britain” means today

Ultimately, the UK textile and fashion industry does still provide many jobs, around 1.3 million jobs to be exact. However, the portion of manufacturing in this number is small at 260,000 or 20% according to the UKFT. One important factor for this decline, besides rising costs, is policy. For decades, there’s been little government investment or protection for local manufacturers. So even when brands want to produce here, the infrastructure does not exist anymore.

As a result, many brands claim to be UK-based, however, they do not actually produce their clothes here. They may design and develop their clothes here, but all manufacturing takes place abroad. The label “Made in Britain” is often reduced to a mere facade. For instance, Viyella proudly announces on their website that their “stylish men’s socks are Made in England,” however, that all other manufacturing was moved abroad is conveniently overlooked. Similarly, another heritage brand, Dr Martens, famously moved their manufacturing from Northamptonshire to China and Thailand in 2002.

Earlier this year, Marie Claire joyfully proclaimed that “‘Made In Britain’ Is Making A Comeback.” So which brands actually produce locally? Household names include Christys’ Hats and Pickett London, both proud heritage brands. Many of these brands are expensive for consumers to buy and aligned with the preferences of a more conservative, traditional consumer base. However, they also often come with the assurance of quality that the “Made in Britain” label used to afford, thus, these garments are made to last. A great, while by no means extensive, resource to use is British Made Clothing, where Rory Ferguson created a “directory dedicated to clothing and shoe brands that proudly manufacture their products in the United Kingdom.”

At The Female Archetypes, we are proud to stand alongside this heritage of British brands. Every piece is designed, developed, and produced in London, with many of our fabrics thoughtfully sourced from materials already in existence within the UK. This allows us to say, with complete confidence, that we are truly “Made in Britain.” More than that, our designs embody timelessness and versatility, ensuring that you never have to choose between personal style and locally made quality.

The Future of the UK Textile Industry

So, how can we support local production? First and foremost, by challenging the brands we buy from. This principle applies across all areas of sustainability. As consumers, we now have unprecedented access to brands through social media, making it easier than ever to ask questions about their practices. The more we speak up, the more pressure brands face to act responsibly and with transparency.

In their “Reshoring for Real” recommendations, the UKFT suggests brands should deepen partnerships with UK factories, manufacturers should invest in technology, quality, and ethics, and policymakers must incentivise sustainable innovation to rebuild a transparent, circular, and competitive domestic apparel industry, “Creating green growth, jobs and investment while reducing carbon and environmental impacts.”

And some changes have already taken place, for example, the Procurement Act of 2023 has allowed public buyers to favour local manufacturing. Moreover, a few heritage brands are returning to the UK: Vogue Business reported earlier this year that Mulberry’s CEO, Andrea Baldo, is betting on local production to get the brand back to its original excellence.

Hopefully, in time, “Made in the UK” may no longer be a nostalgic phrase, but a renewed emblem of excellence and enduring artistry.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 19.10.2025

London: a city so central to our mission at The Female Archetypes. A great city that many of us love for its vibrancy and layered history. Yet its monuments and statues tell a complex story, one that clearly shows us who is represented in the historical record and who is often forgotten. Carved in marble and cast in bronze, most of the statues are of History’s so-called “Great Men.”

So this week, I set out to find the others. The women. The archetypes. I have created a route through London with a theme in mind, tracing how the feminine archetypes show up in London’s public art. Some of them are literal representations of the Greek goddesses, while I had to be a little more creative with others. In this post, I’d like to take you on this route with me, so you too can explore the faces of courage, creativity, and sovereignty that shape London’s quieter artistic landscape.

A quick disclaimer: this walk covers a considerable amount of ground and could easily be split over a couple of days. Alternatively, London’s excellent public transport makes it simple to hop between stops if you prefer a lighter pace. You can find the full route, with walking distances and travel times, on my Wanderlog map.

Before we begin, it’s worth noting that one could probably find most, if not all, of the goddesses linked to the feminine archetypes within the British Museum. Yet I’ve deliberately chosen to leave that space out of this walk. The museum’s history of displaying stolen artefacts, particularly from Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean, where many of these goddesses originate, makes it an uneasy setting for this walk. To me, seeking the feminine mainly among London’s living streets, rather than behind contested glass, feels like the truer pilgrimage.

Celebrating Postpartum Motherhood through Mother Vérité

Let’s start our day with one of the most exciting statues on this list: sculptor Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark’s Mother Vérité, London’s “first postpartum statue.” Conceived by Chelsea Hirschhorn, the bronze figure is modelled on real women, created to “capture every scar, curve, and crease of the postpartum journey.” For The Female Archetypes, this feels like the perfect place to begin. We design for women at every stage of life, including pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause, and Mother Vérité stands as a rare public acknowledgement of those often unseen transitions. Mother Vérité embodies the archetype of Demeter, the Mother. D’Clark’s sculpture translates Demeter’s myth into the modern world, a woman marked not by perfection, but by experience. Her posture and presence remind us that creation always carries both sacrifice and strength. Unfortunately, Mother Vérité is only a temporary installation, so it’s worth visiting before it leaves at the end of October. And alternatively, Cecile Nobrega’s Bronze Woman, located outside Stockwell Station, is also a must-see. It depicts an African-Caribbean woman lifting her child toward the sky, a beautiful echo of maternal strength and renewal.

The Athenaeum Club and the Archetype of the Sage

Next, I’m sure we could all use a coffee, and where better than the aptly named Archetype Coffee to strengthen us for the day ahead?

Once revived, we’ll make our way to The Athenaeum Club, whose grand Doric portico is crowned by a statue of the goddess Athena, the Sage, from whom the club takes its name. Since we can only admire her from afar, we’ll return to this archetype later in our journey, when Athena will reappear in a different, more unexpected form.

The Windrush Monument and the Strength of Generational Bonds

We’ll cross the river briefly to Waterloo Station to visit the National Windrush Monument. Created by sculptor Basil Watson, this striking bronze pays tribute to the dreams, ambition, and resilience of the Windrush pioneers who arrived in Britain after the Second World War, and to the generations who followed. At its heart stands a family: a mother, a father, and a daughter. The woman forms the central figure, poised, steady, and resolute. Hand in hand with her partner, she looks ahead, guiding and encouraging the child who steps forward beside her. Her strength is quiet but unmissable, the anchor of the composition. Within the framework of feminine archetypes, the mother and daughter embody Demeter and Persephone, a timeless story of protection, separation, and renewal. In this context, they become symbols of migration itself: the courage to leave, the fear of loss, and the enduring bond that ensures return. Like Demeter and Persephone, the Windrush women and their descendants carried the cycle of life, culture, and hope across an ocean, planting roots in a new world.

The Women of World War II Monument and the Spirit of Hestia

Returning to the north side of the river, we arrive at the Women of World War II Monument on Whitehall. At first glance, it may not seem to fit the pattern of goddesses and archetypes. Yet, to me, this monument speaks powerfully to Hestia, the Mystic and protector of the hearth. In Greek mythology, Hestia tends the sacred fire, the still centre around which community and family gather. During the Second World War, millions of women held that role on the home front. They kept the city running, sustained families, worked in factories, hospitals, and fields, preserving the quiet flame of everyday life while the world burned around them. Yet, when the war ended and men returned to reclaim their jobs, these women were expected to quietly hang up their uniforms, to return to domesticity, as if their contributions were only temporary. This quiet strength, this unseen labour, is exactly what Hestia embodies, devotion without recognition, stability without spectacle. The women of the monument are her modern echoes: guardians of the home, keepers of the invisible flame.

Millicent Fawcett’s Statue and the Power of Courage

Only a five-minute walk away stands the Millicent Garrett Fawcett Statue in Parliament Square, the first monument of a woman ever placed there. Fawcett, a pioneering suffragist and leader of the women’s movement, embodies the clarity and reason of Athena, the Warrior Sage. Her gaze is steady, her stance resolute, holding a banner that reads “Courage calls to courage everywhere.” Yet beneath her intellectual poise lies a gentler resonance, the quiet compassion of Demeter. Fawcett’s activism was not born only of ideology, but also of loss: her daughter, Philippa, died young, and that grief deepened her commitment to social reform and education. In her, the mind of Athena and the heart of Demeter converge, wisdom tempered by empathy, strategy informed by care. Standing amid a square long dominated by the statues of men, Fawcett’s presence feels both defiant and restorative, a balance of reason and nurture.

The Huntress Fountain and the Spirit of Independence in Hyde Park

The next leg of our journey is best done by public transport as we make our way toward Hyde Park. There, at the Huntress Fountain, we find Diana, the Roman form of the Greek goddess Artemis. Artemis represents the Huntress archetype, the woman who pursues her goals with clarity, courage, and instinct. She stands for independence, self-determination, and the right to one’s own rhythm. In mythology, Artemis roamed wild forests and moonlit paths, guided by intuition and an unshakable sense of purpose. Here, in the calm of Hyde Park, she feels like a pause and a release, a moment to breathe after the intensity of the city’s monuments. Her poised bow and flowing form evoke focus and motion, yet also serenity. Within the journey of the feminine archetypes, she reminds us that freedom and purpose can coexist, that pursuit itself can be sacred.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Statue and The Complexity of The Queen Archetype

After a stroll through Hyde Park, we arrive at the Royal Albert Hall, in front of which stands London’s first statue of Queen Elizabeth II. This statue obviously embodies the Queen archetype, the woman who holds authority, steadiness, and continuity. Like Hera, the queen of Olympus, Elizabeth II represented devotion to duty. Her reign, which spanned seven decades, was marked by profound cultural and political change, yet her public image remained a symbol of stability. Still, this stability was not without complexity. The Queen’s power was largely symbolic, framed within an institution deeply entangled with Britain’s colonial history. Her figure evokes reverence, but it also prompts questions about the narratives of empire that still linger in the public imagination and about which forms of femininity are celebrated in stone. Standing before the Royal Albert Hall, itself a monument to heritage and national identity, her likeness carries both grace and contradiction. Within the spectrum of feminine archetypes, she reminds us that sovereignty can be both dignified and distant; that power, when institutionalised, often demands silence as much as strength.

The Return of the Goddesses to Olympia Exhibition Centre

If you’re feeling a little hungry by now, I’d recommend stopping at The Holland in Kensington, a fitting choice, sharing its name with our founder, Alice Holland-Lu.

From there, you can hopefully soon head toward the Olympia Exhibition Centre, where plans are underway to reinstall the statues of Triptolemus, Demeter, and Persephone atop the Grand Hall roof. These figures, a teacher, a mother, and a maiden, represent the eternal cycle of knowledge, nurture, and rebirth. Their reinstatement feels symbolic in itself: a quiet restoration of myth to the modern skyline, a return of the sacred feminine to a space of commerce and spectacle.

Finding the Goddess of Love at Richmond Hill Terrace Gardens

If you aren’t tired yet, I’d suggest one last stop to an archetype we haven’t yet encountered. It’s a slightly longer Tube ride, taking us down to Richmond Hill’s Terrace Gardens, where you’ll find Aphrodite, controversially nicknamed “Bulbous Betty.” Carved by Edgar Allan Howes and placed here in 1952, this statue represents the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and desire. Though modest in scale, she carries the quiet grace of Aphrodite’s archetype, the creative life force, the embodiment of sensuality, connection, and renewal. Her unfortunate nickname reflects a lingering discomfort with female form and pleasure, a reminder of how easily the sensual is trivialised, even in art. Yet, standing here amid the serenity of the gardens, Aphrodite feels reclaimed: soft, grounded, unapologetically human.

What I Learned Walking Among London’s Archetypes

Walking through London in search of its feminine archetypes is really a walk through time and through absence. These statues don’t simply represent women; they reveal where women’s stories have been overlooked. Each one carries a thread of the divine feminine, creation, courage, sovereignty, wisdom, and love, woven into the city’s fabric of empire, endurance, and change. What struck me most was their quietness. Scattered across London, they ask to be found, not flaunted, a reminder that feminine power often resides in subtlety and persistence rather than monumentality. From Demeter’s nurture in Mother Vérité, to Athena’s reason in Millicent Fawcett, Hestia’s devotion, Artemis’s independence, Hera’s sovereignty, and Aphrodite’s passion, the city becomes a living pantheon, not of gods above us, but of women among us.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 12.10.2025

By now, most of us have heard that capsule wardrobes are the answer to decision fatigue, the cure for those mornings when you stare at a closet full of clothes and still feel like you have “nothing to wear.” But if you’re anything like me, the real question is: where do you start? The idea of buying a whole new wardrobe that magically works together feels overwhelming, and honestly, defeats the purpose of being more conscious about consumption in the first place.

When doing my research, I came across Courtney Carver’s Project 333™, also known as the 3-3-3 clothing rule. It’s a minimalist fashion challenge that invites you to dress with just 33 items for 3 months, all with pieces from your existing wardrobe. Simple, practical, and surprisingly liberating, it shows that you don’t need more clothes to have more style, you just need to prioritise the right ones.

Here, I will break down how the 3-3-3 rule works, why it’s such an effective approach to dressing smarter, and how timeless, adjustable pieces from The Female Archetypes can help you build a capsule wardrobe that evolves with you.

3-3-3 clothing rule explained

As mentioned above, the 3-3-3 clothing rule was created by writer and minimalist advocate Courtney Carver as part of her Project 333™. The idea is simple but powerful: you choose 33 items of clothing, shoes, and accessories to wear for a period of 3 months. This capsule wardrobe challenge is designed to help you dress with ease, reduce decision fatigue, and discover what you actually love wearing.

Courtney Carver, Project 333: The Minimalist Fashion Challenge That Proves Less Really Is So Much More (New York: TarcherPerigee, 2020).

So, what counts toward your 33 pieces? Everything you wear outside the house, clothing, outerwear, shoes, and accessories, is included. The goal is to pare down to the essentials you’ll actually reach for every day.

And what doesn’t count? You don’t have to limit underwear, sleepwear, or workout clothes, since those are considered functional basics. Instead, the focus stays on your day-to-day wardrobe, the pieces that carry you through work, errands, social occasions, and everything in between.

By setting clear boundaries, the 3-3-3 rule helps you edit your wardrobe without feeling deprived. It’s not about rigid rules or perfection, but about creating space in your closet (and in your life) for simplicity, clarity, and freedom. Moreover, the three-month timeframe allows an accessible entry into conscious consumption without feeling overwhelmed.

Why the 3-3-3 Rule Works

The beauty of the 3-3-3 clothing rule lies in its simplicity. By narrowing your wardrobe down to just 33 items for three months, you immediately cut through decision fatigue. Instead of staring at a closet full of clothes you rarely wear, you’re choosing from pieces you know and love: fewer choices, more clarity.

This focus naturally helps define your personal style. When you only keep the items that make you feel confident and comfortable, you start to see patterns emerge: the silhouettes you reach for most, the colours you gravitate toward, the pieces that actually work for your lifestyle. In other words, you stop dressing for an ideal version of yourself and start dressing for your real life. It might also give you clarity about the pieces you thought you didn’t need, but find yourself missing after those three months: a reminder of what truly earns its place in your wardrobe.

There are practical benefits, too. A smaller, more intentional wardrobe saves both time and money. Getting dressed becomes effortless, and you’re less tempted to impulse buy pieces that won’t last. At the same time, consuming less means you’re reducing waste and making more sustainable choices. A capsule wardrobe is as good for the planet as it is for your peace of mind.

How to Start a 3-3-3 Capsule Wardrobe

I’ve decided to approach the 3-3-3 clothing rule as a bit of an experiment, not to restrict myself, but to see what really happens when I simplify. The first step will be to completely empty my wardrobe. I want to start with a blank slate and actually see everything I’ve accumulated over the years.

From there, I’ll begin choosing the pieces I know I reach for again and again: versatile basics that can be dressed up or down, like my favourite jeans, a blazer that works in almost any setting, and an overshirt I can throw on in a hundred different ways. Once those foundations are in place, I’ll add a few seasonal layers to keep things practical, a trench or knitwear depending on the weather, and lighter tops for layering when I am at work. Everything else will be stored away, not discarded, so that I can revisit those items later with a clearer head.

After three months, I’ll take stock. Which pieces did I actually wear? Which ones stayed at the back of the rail? How did it feel to dress from such a small but intentional collection? I’m even considering documenting outfits along the way to notice patterns I might not otherwise see (although I know that I am unlikely to stick to this in the long run). The goal isn’t perfection, it’s learning what truly serves me and letting the rest go.

Remember: The 3-3-3 rule is not meant to be a long-term solution. Not everyone can or should live like minimalist influencers who fit their entire wardrobe into a suitcase. Life has seasons, parenting, career changes, travel, even the unexpected, and our wardrobe needs to be able to adapt to that. Think of this challenge less as a rigid rule and more as an experiment. It’s about uncovering what slows you down, clearing away the excess, and making space for clothes that actually support your life, not complicate it.

How to Make the Most of the 3-3-3 Clothing Rule with Functional Fashion

And that’s where functional fashion comes in, clothing designed to adjust to the shifts of real life, so your capsule wardrobe works with you, not against you. If the pieces you select can adapt to different occasions, seasons, and even changes in your body, you get more wear and more confidence out of every item.

Adjustability is at the heart of this idea. For example, The Female Archetypes’ wide-leg jeans feature in-built pleats that can be adjusted while you wear them. Instead of buying multiple sizes or replacing them as your body shifts, one pair evolves with you, offering comfort and flexibility without compromising style.

The same is true for our timeless trench, blazer, and overshirt. Designed with discreet side panels, these staples can be adjusted to fit seamlessly while remaining classic enough to be worn across settings, from work to weekend, season after season. They are the kind of reliable foundations every capsule wardrobe needs: versatile, durable, and designed to move with you.

By investing in clothes that do more, you need fewer of them. That’s why we believe The Female Archetypes is the smarter way to build a capsule wardrobe, functional fashion that adapts, lasts, and truly works for every version of you.

Key Takeaways: The 3-3-3 Rule and Capsule Wardrobes

At its heart, the 333 rule isn’t about restriction; it’s about freedom. Freedom from decision fatigue, from fast-fashion clutter, from clothes that don’t serve you. By curating your wardrobe down to what you truly love and actually wear, you give yourself space to dress with confidence and ease.

The real secret to dressing smarter is choosing quality over quantity, timeless, versatile pieces that carry you through seasons, shifts, and stages of life. That’s exactly what we design at The Female Archetypes. Our adjustable jeans, blazers, trenches, and overshirts are built to adapt with you, making them the perfect foundation for a capsule wardrobe that works.

If you’re ready to try the 3-3-3 rule yourself, start with pieces designed to last and evolve with you. Discover how functional fashion can make your wardrobe simpler, smarter, and more sustainable, and explore The Female Archetypes as your partner in building a capsule wardrobe that truly works.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 05.10.2025

Unknown Photographer, “Unidentified Subjects,” c.1900s. From Santu Mofokeng, The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2013).

Ever since visiting Superfine: Tailoring Black Style in New York, I’ve been inspired to revisit the research I did for both my undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations. At the time, I was studying how photographs can serve as historical evidence (don’t worry, this won’t turn into a dry history lesson). One aspect that drew me in most, then and now, was the clothes: what people chose to wear, and what those choices said about identity, power, and possibility.

As Superfine reminded me: design is never just aesthetic. It is symbolic, imaginative, and political. Clothes are not only functional, they carry meaning. Which is why I want to share one of the most striking archives I encountered during my research: South African photographer Santu Mofokeng’s collection The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890–1950.

Unknown Photographer, “Unidentified Subjects,” c.1900s. From Santu Mofokeng, The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2013).

The Black Photo Album

In 1995, Mofokeng curated a collection of family photographs taken between 1890 and 1950. The portraits, commissioned by Black families themselves, show men, women, and children dressed in European Victorian styles, stiff collars, dark dresses, parasols, hats, and posed in the rigid fashion of middle-class respectability.

These images were made before Apartheid officially became law in 1948. Still, the political doctrines that would fuel Apartheid were already deeply ingrained in society. These photographs exist in that tension: Black South Africans living under racial hierarchy, but not yet locked into the full brutality of Apartheid’s institutional systems.

Mofokeng’s process of curation means that, in many cases, we know little about the individuals pictured. The images come to us detached from full biographies. And those we do see often represent a small elite, leaving the majority outside this visual record. Yet, despite these limits, the archive captures something profound: how Black South Africans navigated identity under pressure.

Assimilation or Resistance?

Mofokeng framed his exhibition around a difficult question: ‘Do these images represent mental colonisation, or do they challenge Western depictions of “The African?”’

This is a question far beyond the scope of this article. In brief, my own conclusion is that it isn’t one or the other. Human identity, especially in oppressive systems, is hybrid and complex. To me, what’s clear is that these sitters weren’t simply assimilating; they were actively self-fashioning.

Thos. O’Bryne, Johannesburg, “Subjects Unknown,” 1890. From Santu Mofokeng, The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2013).

Women’s Clothing as an Act of Defiance

Instead of delving into a large-scale discussion, I would like to concentrate specifically on the photographs of four women and discuss how these women used clothing to assume roles outside the limited dichotomy the oppressive South African system offered them. In the photographs of Mmamothupi Motsoatsoe and of Rozetta Dubula with her friends, we see the ways Black South African women used clothing to resist and to reclaim.

Mmamothupi Motsoatsoe is photographed in a dark, formal dress with a stiff collar, clothes often coded as masculine, associated with authority and self-possession. Even the way she holds her parasol mirrors how men carried walking sticks, which were symbols of control during this time. For context, Mofokeng explains that Motsoatsoe’s family was dispossessed by the Natives’ Land Act of 1913. Whilst before she was the daughter of a prosperous farmer, she was now forced to surrender her independence and serve as cheap labour for white people as a domestic servant. According to her daughters, she had a reputation as a ‘proud and cheeky servant, talking back to her employers and dressing like a madam rather than a maid.’ In keeping with this, her portrait is a striking act of reclamation: not servitude, but authority.

Unknown Potchefstroom Photographer, “Mmamothupi Motsoatsoe,” c.1910s. From Santu Mofokeng, The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2013).

Rozetta Dubula and her friends, meanwhile, posed in bright, girlish “Sunday best” outfits: blouses, skirts, stockings, and straw hats. The women’s representation resists common assumptions about working-class Black South Africans during this period. In line with Mofokeng’s aversion to images that only portray Black struggle, this photograph contrasts the dehumanising depictions of manual labour without falling into the infantilising or sexualised stereotypes of ‘the native.’

Their arrangement echoes the conventions of a family portrait: one woman seated in the centre, the others standing to her side, hands resting on the chair. Yet these were working-class women, once again compelled to leave their families young due to the Natives’ Land Act. Mimi Sheller explains that for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic, ‘family sanctity and autonomy were crucial to popular ideas of freedom,’ and, thus, served as a symbol to underline their civility. Like Mmamothupi Motsoatsoe, these women use existing visual conventions to subvert the clichés surrounding them. By posing as kin and dressing in “pretty” and “respectable” clothing, they defy the erosion of kinship ties enacted by white policymakers, challenging the stereotypes associated with their Black working-class status.

H.F. Fine Studio, 26 West Street, Johannesburg, ‘Rozetta Dubula and friends,’ c. 1910s. From Santu Mofokeng, The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 (Göttingen: Steidl, 2013).

Demanding Recognition

The archive’s subtitle, ‘Look at Me’, recalls Sojourner Truth’s famous ‘And ain’t I a woman?’ speech, where she exclaimed: ‘And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?’ In that speech, Truth demanded recognition as fully human, fully female, fully worthy of respect. Like Truth, these South African women weren’t trying to disappear into European norms. They were using those norms as tools to demand to be seen.

By borrowing visual and stylistic codes of middle-class European femininity, they challenged the stereotypes that their opressors often imposed, stereotypes of primitiveness, sexual promiscuity, or degradation. In their dress and, in turn, in their portraits, they asserted dignity, kinship, and social status.

Why It Matters Today

These photographs remind us that clothing is never trivial. It is deeply political. It can reinforce stereotypes, or it can subvert them. For women living under colonial rule, clothing often becomes a rare tool of resistance, a way to claim space, authority, and family bonds that the system tries to deny them.

Looking at these portraits today is to witness resilience in fabric and pose. A stiff collar, a parasol, a Sunday-best skirt, small details that became acts of defiance. In them, we see women refusing erasure, insisting on presence, and saying, still: Look at Me.

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 28.09.2025

Last Thursday, we had the pleasure of inviting you all to our first The Female Archetypes panel event. With help from the Lone Design Club, Momo Kombucha and MeJuicer, we wanted to create a space for honesty, encouragement, and connection. What unfolded was exactly that, a discussion of self-care, womanhood and confidence that left me feeling both grounded and inspired.

For those who could not attend (or for those, like me, who can’t get enough of these wonderful ladies), I wanted to use this space to share some of the themes that resonated with me most.

Confidence

We began by discussing the idea of confidence; what does it mean to be truly confident? Angelee threw a question into the room that sparked instant recognition in me: Can we “fake it till you make it” when it comes to confidence? What came through was that confidence doesn’t always look like perfection. Sometimes it means being okay with not being okay. Sometimes it means taking accountability when you mess up. As Angelee said:

“To own a situation 100%, not to look for what the scapegoat is, […] just owning what it is, and that is where your confidence shows.”

Naomi echoed this with her reminder that honesty has its own kind of strength, even on professional platforms like LinkedIn, where vulnerability can feel risky:

“It’s so nice to hear that realistic voice that we don’t get to hear very often. […] So I do try and give that more balanced approach.”

The consensus? Confidence isn’t about pretending you have it all figured out. It’s about showing up honestly, even when things are messy.

Self-Care

We all know that confidence starts with how we treat ourselves. When we take the time to care for our well-being, we naturally show up with more confidence.

When asked about how self-care has changed over the last generations, Karyll shared a valuable perspective: she encourages us all to make a conscious effort to slow down. In a culture that rewards constant busyness, choosing rest and reflection is radical. She also reminded us of the generational shift happening:

“We tend to put everyone first. Past generations tend to do that: ‘I’ll do it later, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it later.’ And by the time you look up, years have passed, decades have passed, and you look in the mirror like, ‘Who is this person I am looking at? I don’t recognise them.’ But now, a lot of women are taking the time out to make sure they are taking care of themselves. You cannot pour from an empty cup, so you need to refill your cup.”

Self-care isn’t about abandoning identity; it’s about protecting it. And Karyll has a few very practical tips to achieve this: Firstly, the idea of a wellness retreat (yes, please). Secondly, she highlighted the importance of checking in on each other. And extremely practical, yet profound: Karyll’s tips on cellular hydration, proof that care for ourselves starts at the most basic level.

Balancing Career and Womanhood

When turning to Gabriella, we were especially fascinated by how she manages to balance her high-pressure career as a lawyer with the demands of motherhood and her second career as a content creator. Here, Gabi had a take which she called “controversial”:

“I don’t believe that women can have it all, all the time. I think that you can have certain things at certain times, you can’t have it all at once.”

The key is prioritisation, and the peace that comes from accepting that:

“The key to trying to balance both a career, motherhood, all of your extracurriculars, wellness, is to not try and get too bogged down if one of those things falls off a cliff.”

She reminded us that “it all swings in roundabouts. So, if you then have a week where you do have a bit more time, you can then try to prioritise things you’ve missed out on the last few weeks. And to be honest, that’s the only way I’ve been able to juggle everything.”

Naomi echoed Gabi’s sentiment when she told us about having to parent alone while her partner was out of town: “To be honest, from a work perspective, it really stepped back. I was not able to do the work to the level that I needed to. And I sort of had to make peace with that.”

The reality remains that in many households, even when both partners are breadwinners, care still falls mostly to women. Gabi reinforced this by highlighting how deeply ingrained gender norms shape professional expectations. She noted that women often carry the majority of childcare responsibilities by default, a legacy of centuries of tradition. As a result, when a woman leaves work early for her children, it’s often seen as a shortcoming, whereas when a man does the same, it’s celebrated. Together, their stories highlight the tension so many women face between ambition and the invisible work that sustains their families and communities.

On a more positive note, Naomi also emphasised that women are redefining what success looks like in the workplace:

“Women are doing it for themselves and they’re doing it out of their own desires or even out of their own necessities.”

A Grateful Reflection

This panel reminded me why spaces like this matter. Women gathered together, sharing not only struggles but also wisdom and laughter, creating a kind of collective resilience. This is why, at The Female Archetypes, we want to continue providing these spaces.

If you were there, thank you. If you couldn’t make it, I hope these impressions give you a taste of the energy in the room. And most of all, I hope the words shared here give you something to carry into your own days: confidence without perfection, care without guilt, and balance without the myth of “having it all.”

Written by Jasmine Niblett, 21.09.2025

Teddy Piaz, Joséphine Baker, ca. 1932, “At once soignée and subversive, this picture of Baker in her sophisticated ‘cross-dress’ was widely circulated.”

When planning my trip to New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, had been at the very top of my list. For one, it being New York Fashion Week, this was a great space for a quieter, more profound exploration of fashion. But more importantly, having looked into the exhibition prior to the Met Gala this year, I knew it would be both deeply inspiring and enlightening. Experiencing this collection in person, walking among the towering silhouettes and architectural structures, seeing the details of tailoring and ornamentation up close, added an immediacy that no catalogue or press release could convey.

Before I begin, I want to make it expressly clear that this is not a review; It would be inappropriate for me to rule on an exhibition of this nature. Instead, what follows are my impressions and the takeaways I believe are crucial to our brand and may be of interest to other designers and fashion enthusiasts alike. With this, I also want to acknowledge my perspective: I am a white-passing non-American woman who, as much as I have studied the themes of this exhibition extensively through an academic lens, will never understand the nuances of lived Black American experiences.

That said, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style presents a cultural and historical examination of Black style over three hundred years through the concept of Black Dandyism. The exhibition is aligned with the scholarship of guest curator Monica L. Miller, whose book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity has shaped the field. It is also expressly dedicated to the late Virgil Abloh, who defined a Dandy in his Vocabulary according to Virgil Abloh as “the male aspiration to becoming uninterruptedly sublime”. Superfine is organised into twelve sections, each representing a characteristic that defines the style: ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, champion, respectability, jook, heritage, beauty, cool, cosmopolitanism.

Fashion as a symbolic language

At many points throughout the exhibition, the display echoes Jerry Lorenzo’s words: “dressing […] was not about self-promotion, but about self-preservation.” On some level, I am sure we can all relate to this sentiment. Clothing has the potential to hold and protect the self in a way few other media can.

Bianca Saunders, “Pull-Over” Ensemble, autumn/winter 2022/23, "The jacket […] is cleverly structured as a pullover with snaps hidden at the front to create the illusion of a standard single-breasted suit jacket when closed.”

One piece that felt especially in keeping with this and resonant with our mission at The Female Archetypes was a tan suit from Bianca Saunders’ Autumn/Winter 2022–23 collection (see image above). Sarah Mower described Saunders’ designs as making “tailoring relevant to men in a casualised world.” The design demonstrates her interest in introducing comfort to tailoring, supported by her study of the ways fabric and garments reflect and adjust to the body’s movements. This resonates deeply with our work at The Female Archetypes, where we create adjustable clothing that fits every version of women’s bodies. The idea that tailoring can evolve with the body, rather than restrict it, is at the heart of our own mission and reflects the need to prioritise functionality in clothing without sacrificing style.

Despite this need for self-preservation rather than self-promotion, the exhibition continuously confirms the latter: Black Dandyism never sacrificed style. Fashion, as Abloh reminds us in his 2020 Manifesto, is part of what he called the Black Imagination, “creating an encouraging black consciousness for the present and the future.” This was especially relevant pre-emancipation but remains vital today. In his Exhibition Tour, Andrew Bolton, Head Curator of the Costume Institute, highlights the “liberatory quality of the Imagination itself.” This concept enables extravagance in fashion to not merely be indulgent, but a symbolic language of survival and assertion.

House of Balmain, Olivier Rousteing, Ensemble, pre-fall 2023, “The coat […] is Rousteing’s interpretation of the Veste Hussard, an early nineteenth-century French cavalry jacket with ceremonial gold braid.”

This idea is made powerfully clear in the first section titled “Ownership.” The curators describe it as exploring Black Dandyism’s relationship to currency and conspicuous consumption through material signifiers of gold and silver, and through garments and accessories trimmed with or seemingly made from these metals. The section shows how clothing can dehumanise but also grant agency and self-possession: “Dandyism, in turn, became a mode for Black people to subvert this degradation by claiming and visualising their own value and worth.”At a time when Black people were negotiating their status post-emancipation, style became a way to transform invisibility into presence, sometimes through the sheer boldness of personal fashion.

Connecting the past and the present

I love how the exhibition simultaneously carries the visitor through the history of Black Dandyism while also constantly referencing contemporary style. For example, the “Jook” section that explores the avant-garde fashion of jook (juke) joints, speakeasies, and cabarets between emancipation and the Harlem Renaissance, exhibited a few of the surviving pieces from this period alongside modern interpretations.

LUAR, Raul Lopez, Suit, spring/summer 2023, edition 2025, “The […] collection featured an exaggerated shoulder line Lopez dubbed the ‘boulder shoulder,’ reminiscent of the exaggerated zoot silhouette.”

The zoot suit emerged as a symbol of “transgression, joy and youth.” Willy Chavarria of The New York Times puts it beautifully: “The suit’s incredible aesthetic moved me deeply not only because of its ability to take up space through silhouette and style, but also because of its capacity to make powerful political statements primarily through visual means. Zoot suits somehow articulate who their wearers were or had the potential to be.” Malcom X famously found pride in wearing the zoot suit, while modern interpretations often exaggerate its features to highlight its transgressive nature.

Standing before one of the towering zoot suit displays, I felt this viscerally. Oversized silhouettes demand recognition; they take up space unapologetically. Without making too laboured a comparison, our oversized pieces at The Female Archetypes also serve this dual function in their own way. The fashion industry and society as a whole often expect women to squeeze themselves into tight, uncomfortable clothing. In contrast, our pieces offer comfort while defying the expectation that women must shrink themselves into silence or smallness

Subverting gender norms

The “Beauty” section shows how Black Dandyism has long drawn power from embracing femininity. Glitter, ruffles, bold colours, even Prince’s iconic blouse from his Purple Rain Tour (see below), all spoke to the ways beauty and femininity can be subversive tools of strength. To me, this reinforces one of the core truths our brand is founded on: every feminine archetype can be powerful in its own way. There is no single way to be a woman, or a man for that matter, and clothes should support self-expression rather than constrain it.

Marie France, Louis & Vaughn, Louis Wells, Vaughn Terry Jelks, Shirt worn by Prince, ca. 1984, “Straddling divisions of race, gender, and sexuality, legendary musician Prince used dress to disrupt expectations and push the boundaries of identity and artistry.”

Equally striking was the “Disguise” section. The curators noted: “Just as dress can be a form of concealment, it can also reveal a true self.” Ralph Kerwineo and Stormé DeLarverie’s use of traditionally male attire to manifest gender-nonconforming identities was both an act of survival and of expression. Contemporary garments in this section echoed fashion’s transformative role in crossing the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Here too, I couldn’t help but think of our own tailoring, blazers and shirts that borrow the vocabulary of traditional menswear but imbue it with the comfort and adaptability women deserve.

Off-White, Ib Kamara, Jacket and Suit, spring/summer 2023, “The jackets […] comment on the ability of standardised garments like the suit to conceal the identity and individuality of the wearer.”

Final reflections

Superfine is more than an exhibition. It is a meditation on how clothing carries identity, survival, and aspiration, how style can be both resistance and joy. Free with museum admission, this is an exhibition not to be missed if you are in New York.

For us at The Female Archetypes, it is a reminder that design is never just aesthetic. It is symbolic, imaginative, and political. And when we create clothing that adapts to women’s changing lives, we too proudly participate in this long lineage of fashion as a liberatory force.

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Written by Jasmine Niblett 14.09.2025