Stylish Mom Outfits and the Holy Grail. Neither can be found.

I recently left my full-time job to spend some time with my son, work part time and pursue my creativity (see: this blog and some other stuff).

I had a closet full of career wear, which in my case meant a lot of black trousers, semi-artsy tops and statement necklaces to keep the eyes on my face and off my hips. I had a smaller population of casual clothes, and some loungewear. An item of clothing qualified as loungewear if it was not decent enough in coverage or quality to be worn outside of the house, the only exception being if the house was on fire.

So with a change in lifestyle comes a change in wardrobe, right? Except that I didn't know what to wear. I would be spending a lot of time at home, at the park with my son, and doing mom-stuff like grocery shopping and dishes. Sounds like fun, huh?

My goal was modest and my standards were low. I wanted to just look OK, not a "shlumpadinka" and not one of those supermodel moms, impossibly thin with expensive jeans. I wanted to convey a sense of style that said "I might be a mom, but I'm still trying to look cool. Is it working?", but also be comfortable enough to run at the park or bend over to get the dry clothes out of the dryer. Give me "good enough", and I'd be fine.

So imagine my horror when I discovered this terrible truth. There are no stylish and cheap clothes for moms, especially ones for "robust" figures. The fashion industry assumes that every mom wants cropped cargo pants and floral printed tee shirts. Believe me, I have done the legwork, and the staggering lack of variety is, well, staggering.

So one of the goals of this blog is to find the penultimate mom outfit, which must have these attributes:

• inexpensive, because its going to get something spilled on it
• stylish, because I want to think I might still have it
• decent quality, because even though something is going to get spilled on it, I'll probably wear it with the stain anyway. I need my stained shirt to last.
• plenty of stretch, because I have never bent down so much since becoming a mother.
• comfortable footwear, because my feet still think we're pregnant.

So there you have it. Are you up for the challenge? Can you suggest a good looking mom outfit that fits this criteria? Create an outfit on ShopStyle.com and post the link in comments. I'll post my ideas throughout this blog, so keep coming back for Mom Outfits.