Motherhood, Memory, and the Legacy We Wear 

Women move through life carrying more than one identity at a time. We are mothers, creatives, founders, writers, stylists, models, designers, editors, and caretakers of both the people we love and the lives we are trying to build. We hold ambition in one hand and tenderness in the other. We make things happen. We keep things going. And somewhere in the middle of all that, motherhood remains one of the deepest forces shaping how we love, how we lead, and how we remember.

For model and mother Eliza Spilsbury, memory lives in something beautifully simple: a straw garden hat.  

In fashion, so much comes and goes. Trends move fast. Seasons turn over. Newness keeps asking for our attention. But some things stay. Some things carry more than style. They hold memory, lineage, and emotion. A handbag, a scarf, a piece of jewellery, even a worn garden hat can carry the spirit of the women who wore them before us. These are not just accessories. They are traces of motherhood, creativity, resilience, and home.

“As for my grandmother’s hat, I grew up watching her out in her garden with various straw hats,” Eliza shared. “We would sit together in her breakfast nook and watch birds play in the bird baths in her garden. It truly was one of the most beautiful sprawling gardens. People would stop to tell her how wonderful it was.”

You can feel the memory in that. Not only the image of the garden, but the woman at the center of it. A grandmother whose creativity spilled into every part of her world. She had an art studio behind her home. She painted birthday cards for the family on little canvases. She made beauty with her hands, then stepped outside and kept making it in the garden. That kind of presence stays with you. It teaches you that care itself can be an art form.

“When we had her funeral, all her daughters and granddaughters wore straw hats to honor her,” Eliza said. “My grandmother was a creative herself. She had an art studio in the back of her house where she would paint many things. She would paint us birthday cakes on a little canvas for our birthday cards. She was a wonderful inspiring woman.”

That is what makes fashion personal. It is not always the label. Not the price. Not the trend. It is the feeling attached to the thing. Accessories especially seem to understand this. They outlive moods and seasons. They stay linked to moments, people, and memories that continue shaping us long after those moments have passed.

“I found this photo of my mother from 1996 and the straw hats have been strong in my family forever!” -Eliza Spilsbury, Mother’s Day, May of 1996 ; Photo credit: Elizabeth Spilsbury

In Eliza’s story, the straw hat becomes something much bigger than an object. It becomes a connection. A remembrance. A quiet inheritance passed between women. Not only a piece worn on the body, but a symbol of love, creativity, and continuity.

“I was very thankful to get something as simple as a straw hat because I had so many special memories of seeing her wear them in her favorite place, her garden,” she reflected.

Now, Eliza wears her own straw hat while tending to the garden herself, continuing that thread of memory in the most natural way.

“I wear my straw hat when it’s time to wake the garden up from its winter slumber,” she said. “I see her in every bird and every flower so I know she’s always there.”

Eliza Spilsbury, Photography by Nicholas Taylor, Styling by April Branch

There is something deeply moving about that. The way motherhood leaves evidence of itself. Not always loudly. Sometimes through rituals. Sometimes through small objects. Sometimes through gestures so ordinary they almost escape notice until years later, when you realize they shaped everything.

And maybe that is the real legacy. Not only what mothers give us directly, but what they leave behind in atmosphere, in habits, in creativity, in the way they teach us to see the world.

Eliza Spilsbury, Photography by Nicholas Taylor, Styling by April Branch

Photographed by Nicholas Taylor at Forest Hill Park, this Mother’s Day editorialholds that feeling beautifully. There is elegance in it, yes, but also intimacy. Through fashion, storytelling, and personal memory, Eliza reminds us that motherhood is not only something lived in the present. It is also something inherited, remembered, and carried forward in ways both visible and quiet.  

This Mother’s Day, we celebrate not only mothers themselves, but the beauty, creativity, strength, and lasting imprint they leave behind.