Finally, London Fashion Week got its talking point. This year’s viral moment was brought to you courtesy of Di Petsa, whose spring/summer 2027 collection, “Holy Milk” – a paean to motherhood and all its accompanying rituals, from the raw to the refined. Apparently.
Many of the women walking down the runway were either pregnant or mothers themselves, accompanied by their children – some infants, some grown-up male models – and every look incorporated elements of birth and nurturing, including a royal blue corset that cut away underneath one of the model’s breasts, which she kept covered with a hand painted entirely white.
But the grand finale came by way of a white sculptural lactating bra, modelled by former Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, who is currently pregnant with her third child. As the crowd watched on, smartphones held high, the 34-year-old singer stood in the centre of the runway, regal with both hands outstretched in a goddess-like pose, as faux breast milk squirted from her bra. The other models surrounded her on the floor, gazing up at Pinnock as if she were an earth mother with robotic lactating superpowers.
There’s a version of this stunt that feels powerful. After all, breastfeeding, remains stigmatised; something women are still expected to hide, and to keep shrouded in privacy out of fear of offending anyone, often at the expense of their own comfort and dignity. It can also be painful, exhausting, and deeply distressing when issues such as mastitis, sore nipples, and poor latching arise, all of which are exacerbated by societal judgement.
Pinnock pointed to all this herself in an Instagram post about the show, calling it “one of the most empowering experiences of [her] life”. The singer added: “Pregnancy is so often treated as something we should hide. We’re told to cover up, to be careful, to dress around our changing bodies and somehow, in the process of that we can lose the feeling that our bodies are ours to celebrate.
“So to be given a space to stand on a runway, pregnant, completely exposed to the power of what my body is doing and to celebrate it rather than conceal it… was seriously one of the most empowering experiences of my life.”
Pregnant women are rarely celebrated in this manner, least of all on a catwalk. And while I wouldn’t want to diminish the galvanising feeling Pinnock herself experienced in that moment, I have trouble recognising this show as anything more than a social media stunt designed to go viral and sell expensive clothes.
Di Petsa’s show didn’t really address any of the core issues new mothers actually face, nor did it kickstart any kind of meaningful conversation around motherhood
Despite all the pomp and pageantry, London Fashion Week is fundamentally a trade event, albeit an extremely Instagrammable one. Still, the intention is for designers to showcase their collections for the season ahead, in the hope of getting them stocked by retailers, worn by celebrities, and featured in the media.
For many designers, a fashion show offers a platform for creative expression. It’s a stage for artistry, one that has felt remarkably bare compared to the days of Alexander McQueen’s famous shows in the late Nineties and early Noughties. Has there been anything quite so thrillingly theatrical since Shalom Harlow stood on a rotating platform in a white cotton dress, while two robots sprayed her with black and yellow ink? How about when Kate Moss closed the autumn/winter 2006 show by appearing as a hologram? Or when Jodie Kidd was showered with sprinklers at the end of the spring/summer 1998 show? And the Joan of Arc-themed finale of the autumn/winter 1998 show that saw a model standing in a ring of fire?
These were genuine moments that shocked, awed, and disrupted the industry, cementing McQueen’s place firmly at the heart of fashion history. And nothing has really rivalled them since. The closest we’ve come to it is perhaps Coperni’s famous spray dress from its spring/summer 2023 collection, when the model appeared on stage in nothing but nude underwear, and was subsequently sprayed with a white fabric that moulded to her body.
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A bra that squirts breastmilk onto the runway feels somewhat meagre, both artistically and in its messaging. Di Petsa’s show didn’t really address any of the core issues new mothers actually face, nor did it kickstart any kind of meaningful conversation around motherhood. The ugly parts that are inconvenient for the aesthetics of a runway: bleeding, bruising, tearing, and sleep-deprived faces. If anything, all this has done is take the outer layers of a poorly understood female experience and turn it into a spectacle to laugh at.
It’s worth mentioning, too, that Di Petsa is hardly an accessible brand either, with most price points veering far above £500, extending far beyond the amount most women would spend on clothing. Pinnock herself, meanwhile, is a celebrity, someone with far more resources and financial support than the average mother-to-be. All of which begs the same crucial question, of you wanted to make a statement about the realities of motherhood that makes other women feel seen and understood, was this really the best way to do it?
At its core, it might just be a bit silly.
