Meet ‘Ganni mum’ — the new school gate tribe

Scanning the crowd outside my godson’s nursery in a leafy pocket of north London, there isn’t a single Land Rover hovering on a double yellow, not a single pair of Veja trainers, not a single Lycra-clad gym bunny. Fees here are £100 per child per day, so this should be prime yummy mummy-spotting territory, but there is a different tribe taking over the school gates: the Ganni mum.
Named, of course, after their Scandi-cool wardrobes and the bills they run up at the Danish fashion label. Those dipping a toe start with the brand’s cross-body leopard-print bag (in place of the yummy’s Gucci), a gateway to its leopard-print jeans (a cult wear of this summer). Before long, they’ve graduated to full Scandi layering, like Ganni’s candy cane striped cotton minidress — tied in bows down the front — over a white T-shirt and clashing print trousers. Instead of Vejas, they’re wearing Ganni’s buckled pointed-toe flats, or clogs, both over ankle socks.
In fact, the outfits of the front row at Copenhagen Fashion Week this month might have been inspired by the queue at my local independent coffee van, parked in the church yard across the road from soft play. Come the weekend, they’ve decamped to turn the local microbrewery into a crèche with little Hector, Finley and Bruno (coincidentally, also the names of three trendy pét-nat wine bars in my local area) in tow. The kids themselves are just as artfully styled, in clashing prints and vintage-looking T-shirts from the Swedish brand Mini Rodini — no Marvel characters or Railway Children throwbacks here.
This isn’t a London-only phenomenon: I heard that Ganni is a bestseller in Cheshire boutiques for the Manchester Ganni mums, and had the prime spot in the windows of several boutiques in Edinburgh last time I was there. Ganni was launched in 2000, but didn’t become a superbrand in the UK until the 2010s, when it was adopted by young cool women in their twenties. Now those women are nearer to 40, and still wearing their Ganni — on the school run.
Even the Ganni mum’s status ride is a Scandinavian transplant: instead of a fleet of luxury black SUVs, they arrive on cargo bikes costing thousands, with cushioned carriers for the kids (and sometimes the mum, with dad at the handlebars). With electric oomph to help on the hills, there’s no need to swap their Ganni leopard jeans for the yummy mummies’ favourite Lululemon leggings, and they don’t frequent their reformer Pilates classes either.
The Ganni mum is not much of a wine mum — though orange is an exception. She loves a tiny tinned margarita in the park with her mates, or a bottle of zero-alcohol Lucky Saint beer in the local pub, where the average age is 75 — until she and her friends arrive and it drops to 35.
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Ganni might still be chasing the twentysomething audience, but most of them are priced out of all but the T-shirts and what they can find second-hand on Vinted. They wear slightly cheaper, slightly younger brands such as Peachy Den, Damson Madder, Paloma Wool and House of Sunny, which all tap into the same aesthetic. But the Ganni mum is loyal to the brand, and trusts it to steer her right — so while the yummy mummies are still in slightly passé Barbie pink, Ganni mums know when to move on to bright yellow. Which is the colour of their Bugaboos (one of the few things they have in common with yummy mummies, though theirs are always black).
A mum-of-two friend of mine recently borrowed my round-framed Jacquemus sunglasses for a selfie, after deeming her once-favourite Celines too yummy mummy. Also on that list: dainty gold jewellery, mididresses, khaki chore jackets and bouncy blow-dries: the Gannis prefer chunky silver chains and rings, mini or maxi lengths (always with flats), gorpcore all-terrain jackets that have never seen a hike (with phone straps that look like bungee ropes) and messy buns held in place by supersized scrunchies — unless of course their hair is air-drying after swimming their daily laps at the local lido. Just add one anxious sighthound — the rescued racing whippet is the Ganni mum’s answer to the yummy’s hypoallergenic cockapoo — and you’re ready for 4pm pick-up.