How Madri Collection Is Making Breastfeeding Easier, and More Stylish, for New Moms

On the day we spoke to first-time fashion designers Ashley Melone and Danielle Walish, Tammy Duckworth brought her newborn baby, Maile Pearl, onto the Senate floor. Duckworth was the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office, and last week, she became the first senator to be allowed to cast a vote with a child in her arms. It was a proud moment for hard-working new mothers everywhere. According to the CDC, the number of women who breastfeed in the U.S. is at an all-time high. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding your baby for at least 12 months, but many women stop nursing after a six-month period. Part of this is due to a lack of support and privacy, both in the workplace and in public spaces. Today, longtime best friends Melone and Walish are doing their part to change some of the stigmas surrounding breastfeeding with the launch of their post-maternity clothing line called Madri Collection. The label, named after the Italian word for mother, includes various styles of effortlessly cool tops, dresses, and jumpsuits that provide easy access to the breast for pumping or nursing via crossover panels and zippers hidden beneath pleats. Everything is priced between $98 and $298 and made with Japanese cotton or seersucker, two fabrics that are much easier and safer on both the mom’s and the baby’s skin than much of what is currently available on the market.

Melone and Walish started talking about launching their own label after both of them became pregnant and gave birth to their daughters five weeks apart. Though they had no trouble finding chic maternity clothes, they quickly realized that there was nothing on the market that really satisfied a stylish woman in the nursing phase. As Walish explains, “When you have a new baby and you are out in public and need to feed that baby, it makes things even more stressful when you can’t access your boob. It makes you feel singled out.” The women spoke to close friends and family members who had all kinds of stories about the difficulties of breastfeeding, particularly in the workplace. “I have a friend who is an agent at WME who went back to work three months after having her baby and she wanted to keep nursing and pumping, so she had to put a screen up in her office for privacy,” Melone says. “I have another friend who is an actress and while she was pumping, she had to go to all of these events and basically take off her entire dress just to pump in the bathroom.” Most women who work in professional environments are required to wear a suit or a dress to the office, which doesn’t help much when you are having to pump two to three times a day and have to fully remove all of your clothes to do so. Staining and wrinkling are obvious but overlooked issues.

Rebecca Stern, who now has two kids and works at the women-run investment firm Ellevest, says that she once had a job interview in another city while she was on maternity leave with her first child. Because there just aren’t a lot of options for women who are nursing and working simultaneously, she had to “find a wrap dress that would enable me to pump in the Amtrak bathroom. I got a cheap black one online and covered it with a blazer, but I had to do some finagling with safety pins so that it wouldn’t be too revealing.” Vogue.com contributor Patricia Garcia also remembers that, once she had her baby, she “quickly discovered that in order to breastfeed comfortably in public, my fashion choices were basically limited to a couple of cotton button-down shirts.” She adds, “Forget about dresses, forget about crewneck T-shirts, forget about silk. Your best bet was wearing something that you could easily unbutton and pop in your baby without revealing too much skin.”

Stories like these were what made the concept of Madri compelling for Melone, a theater producer by trade, and Walish, an interior designer. Also, Melone grew up being involved in La Leche League, a nonprofit organization that helps provide learning tools to women who have chosen to breastfeed. “Danielle and I were both breastfed,” Melone notes. “And my mom has been involved in La Leche League for many, many years. I think we’ve had success nursing with our daughters because we had the support we needed from each other, our other friends, and our family.” The clothes that the two women are making are not only beautiful, but they provide that same kind of support that is necessary for other new moms. The Madri website provides a link to the La Leche League page as well as other types of information for mothers beginning the nursing process. “American culture is starting to embrace the idea of breastfeeding in public or in the office more and more,” Melone says. “I think we’re at this opportune moment where it feels like a shift is happening.”

Above, a first look at Madri.