girl crush: maura brannigan

a new just a splash series featuring q&a's with cool gals doing cool things

Welcome to a new series within just a splash called girl crush. In it, I’ll chat with inspiring women doing cool, creative things. Some are moms, some are not. All will be your latest girl crush. I know they’re mine.

To kick off our series, we have Substack’s own Maura Brannigan. Maura is a fashion & culture journalist by trade, writer of Clotheshorse on Substack, mom of two, a native Chicagoan, and this week’s girl crush.

Meet Maura Brannigan:

Details on Maura’s necklaces can be found in this AMAZING jewelry roundup by Elin Strong!

Where are you from & where do you live now?

I grew up in a little gem of a lakefront suburb of Chicago called Evanston. After 10-ish years in New York City, my husband and I moved back home to the Chicago area in 2021 to start and raise our family.

Who (&/or what) lives with you?

I love the way this question is phrased. My husband (who indeed lives with me) and I have two little girls; they’re three and one. We also have a 10-year-old German Shepherd-Basset Hound mix named Teddy and a fish named Goldie (who technically belongs to our toddler).

How do you spend your days? (ie. “What do you do?”)

I’m a fashion and culture journalist by trade! In practice, this means I wear a bunch of different hats. I’m a writer and editor and contribute to some fantastic publications like Vogue, Vogue Business, The Cut, Business of Fashion, Fashionista, and more. I’m also a brand consultant and work as the founding head of content at boutique communications agency JBC, where I offer a menu of editorial services from brand strategy to creative storytelling to startups and uniquely competitive brands. I also write a weekly Substack called Clotheshorse that I love very much. The TL;DR here is that I like to keep myself probably a little too busy.

What do you love about motherhood right now?

I don’t know how you feel, but I find this era of motherhood to be extremely all-consuming. With little kids so close in age, parenting kind of has to be your whole life in some ways. I’m just all the way in it, you know? I don’t mean that in a bleak or cynical way because I continue to surprise myself that I find so much clarity and confidence in mothering as an act. The two-year age gap regularly has me fighting for my life…but! This also means that the girls are just starting to interact and play with each other in a real way for the first time and that makes me ascend to nirvana.

What feels hard about motherhood right now?

I recently wrote an essay for my Substack about how the job of a mother feels a lot for one person because it was never meant for one person. I’m still learning how to proactively tap myself out when I’m approaching burnout and need to fill my own cup, but I’m grateful to have a partner who is my complete equal in parenting and will advocate for me to take tons of time away from our barnacle children.

What does your parenting “village” or support system look like?

Both sets of my kids’ grandparents live close by. My parents are less than 10 minutes away; they babysit for us a lot. But I’ve also been finding a really lovely kinship with my group of mom friends, some of whom I’ve known since childhood and others I’ve met more recently through my toddler’s school or just from around town. I know I’ve already written about this, but I’ll paraphrase it again here: We need strong communities based on shared experiences that can a) turn routine tasks into special moments, and b) provide emotional support. My mom friends are doing that for me right now.

How do you carve out YOU time and what do you spend it doing?

This is admittedly annoying, but I’m very diligent about working out. As I’ve written about ad nauseam over the years, I have pretty intense clinical anxiety and view exercise as a tool for my mental health as much as anything else I work on in a medical sense. I started strength training after I had my one-year-old and now do that a few times a week along with Pilates, yoga, some running, lots of walking.

I also grew up doing ballet and still try to take class as much as I can. In a ballet class, you have to very closely pay attention to the teacher to pick up the combinations which means I can really disassociate and turn off all other spheres of my brain when I’m back in the studio.

And I love to read a physical book and try to do that every single day, even if it’s literally two pages immediately before I fall asleep. Sometimes I just get through one page. Sometimes less! We do our best around here.

Currently reading?

I’m finishing up The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir, which is amazing and obviously iconic, but definitely…intense. So if anyone has great recommendations for something lighter, hit a girl up.

Currently watching?

I’m in between shows since finishing both Severance and White Lotus! But I’m bullying my husband to once again rewatch Mad Men and also recently rewatched S2 of Fleabag, which is perfect and breaks my heart a little bit more every single time I watch.

Three Substacks to recommend?

It’s so unfair to only pick three! But I get it because otherwise we’d be here all day.

One I never miss is Cosi’s Odyssey, which explores “classics, mythology, and archaeology in the age of memes and doomscrolling.” I took Latin for roughly a bajillion years and then studied classics in college so I get a real tickle out of revisiting that niche corner of my interests again.

My mom is an architect and classically trained in art history, so the fine arts was a big focus in our house growing up. My internet friend Rose Anderson (who by day works in brand at one of my favorite brands, Alex Mill) recently launched a fabulous art-focused Substack called The Rose Period (so clever!) — which chronicles “the special, unusual, and unexpected stories of the art world that you (and I) should know about.” Every post is so gorgeously formatted and meticulously put together and I always learn so much from her.

And then just a splash, of course!

One thing in your closet you come back to time and time again?

Okay, so I have two things:

The first is a pair of Levi’s 501s in a classic medium wash. I wear jeans pretty much every day of my life and can attest that nothing beats a solid pair of 501s. There must be some science behind this, though to verify that would be above my pay grade so we’ll just conjecture here.

And the second are these Freda Salvador loafers that I got back in January and have also worn nearly every single day since.

One thing you’re lusting over?

This Dôen skirt! I have a vision of wearing it all summer with a white tank (and probably those same Freda Salvador loafers).

One thing you’re looking forward to?

We were just talking about how this is going to be my first summer in five years that I’m not pregnant or breastfeeding, which sounds kind of insane. And it is insane! But I’m excited to have my body be totally my own and enjoy the glory days that’s summertime here in Chicago.

What’s your superpower?

What a thoughtful question! I consider myself a pretty empathetic person, sometimes to a fault. My husband has tasked me with being more selfish this year. I’m working on it! I never want anyone to confuse kindness for weakness because softness and strength do go beautifully hand-in-hand.

Where can people find you? (plug yourself!)

I’m mostly on Substack these days! So you can find me there. I mean this earnestly: Please don’t hesitate to contact me! I’d love to hear from you!

OK the above concoction is something I now will be trying, thanks to Maura. Take your “crispiest, frostiest, driest white and add in some peño slices.”