Mother Stories
Inside Laura Schoorl of Pansy’s Beautiful Berkeley Abode
Written by Erin Feher
Photography by
Photographed by Maria del Rio
Sep 4, 2019
Anyone tempted to make another baby, beware—no one makes newborn bliss look quite so cozy as today’s profile subject. Laura Schoorl has long been on the list of women we admire—back in 2012 she launched Pansy, an ethical undies brand that uses only locally grown and milled organic cotton, and turns it into some of the prettiest (and comfiest!) bras and panties around. While Laura considers her company her first baby, her second—a perfect little boy named Pascal—has been garnering the bulk of her love and attention since he was born just over a year ago. Recently Laura invited us into her dreamy Berkeley bungalow and discussed her version of “the juggle”—how for the first year of Pascal’s life, her son has unquestionably came before her business, and how being secure in that decision has allowed her to truly tune-in to this new phase. Click through the full tour below, and if you decide to jump back on the baby train after reading this one, don’t say we didn’t warn you!
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- "This is our little Berkeley dream home. My husband Shane and I moved here two years ago and got pregnant immediately. We had been living in a tiny apartment in downtown Oakland for seven years and I was very ready for my own space and garden, somewhere I could make beautiful."
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- "It is both minimal and messy. I have a love of tiny things, so there are little vignettes all over the house. It’s very cozy."
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- "We are renting and we worked with the home owners to redo the kitchen and bathroom before we moved in. We were able to pick tile and paint shades, and have some doors removed and light fixtures changed. We love our landlords."
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Laura wears a vintage top and Caron Callahan pants. Pascal wears Ketiketa pants and top.
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- "I like to be comfortable and to have things that are beautiful and well made. I love vintage textiles and natural materials. Shearling everywhere!"
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- "I just wanted a comfy place to relax. I bought the deepest couch I could find and covered it with a giant shearling and pillows. It was my nest while I was pregnant."
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- "It’s a work in progress. Pascal still sleeps with us so we joke that it’s our cat’s room since she spends more time there than any of us do. Pascal’s clothes are all in his dresser and we keep some toys in there, so it has some purpose as a nursery, but still serves as a guest room until he moves in."
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- "I love our beds. I designed the day bed in the nursery as my take on a more child-friendly Judd daybed. I gave birth to Pascal in our bed, so it is very special to me. Both were made by a woodworker in San Francisco. I also love my Shepherdess sheep hides and shearling pillows."
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- "During the day, our kid’s toys and books are everywhere. Now that he’s walking, it can’t be helped. We put it all away in baskets when he is asleep. I do try to make sure that the things we bring into our lives are aesthetically pleasing, so I can take joy in them even as they’re scattered through our house and yard."
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- "Our neighborhood feels like a village. We don’t have to get in our car to do anything. We can walk to our local natural food store, cafe, park, library, and even our pediatrician. Everything is within a mile of our house. It is so idyllic."
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- "I dream of living in nature. And L.A. is always calling—we end up in L.A. a quarter of the year visiting friends and family and working. I'm not sure what the future holds."
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- "For food and drink, we love Bartavelle Cafe, Berkeley Natural Grocery and Kermit Lynch wine shop. The Berkeley farmers’ markets are amazing. I like the Tuesday one best. Our favorite shops include Hida Tool, a Japanese tool store, and Tinsel Trading, a vintage craft store, which are both a few blocks from our home. For nature, we love to take Pascal to the little farm in Tilden Park to feed the cows and ride the steam train in the woods. I love walking around the Berkeley Marina and feeling the fresh bay breeze."
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- "I love that I have someone to give all my love to every day forever. I love kissing and cuddling and breastfeeding him. Being this physically close to another human is beyond anything else. He is my biggest joy. I love dressing him every day."
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- "The state of the world and the vulnerability of being human."
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- "We waited to find out his sex until his birth and, even in the moments after, I had almost no interest in knowing. I only cared that he was alive and breathing and in my arms. I know he will express who he is regardless of sex, and my job is to nurture him and give him as much love and support as I can."
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- "Pascal Frazier. Pascal was the only boy name that my husband and I could agree on. I had never known anyone named Pascal and, while somewhat common in France, it is less well known in the U.S. By chance, Pascal ended up being born on St. Pascal’s day, two weeks before his due date. We call him our little reincarnated Spanish saint baby. Frazier is Shane’s father’s middle name."
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- "Pascal is a little over a year and he loves to play in the dirt and pick strawberries in the garden. He loves books and blowing bubbles! He has started handing me my sun hat and sunglasses and grabbing my hand and walking me to the door when he is ready to go out in the world. He can’t communicate verbally yet but takes lots of initiative. He loves wandering the neighborhood and turning over every stone and leaf."
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- "Always. I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a baby. My mom was so nurturing when my sisters and I were young. It was her dream to have us and we all inherited her love of children."
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- "We were very lucky and got pregnant the first time we tried. My pregnancy itself was awful. I started feeling sick at six weeks on the dot and was so fatigued and nauseated that I couldn’t leave the couch for a month. I had never been that debilitated. After 10 weeks, I started having a few hours a day that weren’t a complete fog, but every afternoon and evening was horrible. It felt like the worst hangover. I also had extreme hormonal heartburn. The nausea didn’t ease until 22 weeks and the heartburn lingered. Right as I was starting to feel better, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and had to go on a really strict diet to maintain my blood sugar so we could move forward with our plan to birth our baby at home."
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- "Giving birth at home is something I had been dreaming of for years. My sister Katrina had two home births and was a huge inspiration to me. She was a doula and introduced me to Ina May Gaskin when I was in my early twenties. I spent years reading and rereading birth stories. Giving birth felt like a mystical calling, something that I would be lucky to experience at least once in my life. I worked with a local nurse midwife and an OB (just in case) throughout my pregnancy, and connected with a doula, Lily Rachles, the week before—she ended up being the most essential person in our birth team. Two weeks before my due date my water broke in the morning and I started contractions. By nighttime, things started becoming more challenging and I labored all night in the living room on shearlings with my doula by candlelight. I spent hours walking all over the house, leaning on Shane through each contraction. There was never a moment where I was scared, though I was very ready to be done. I was tired and depleted. The midwives arrived in the early morning and we moved to the bedroom. I pushed for 45 minutes and there he was. The feeling of pushing him out was beyond anything I could ever imagine. I’ve never felt more present and in my body than while giving birth."
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Laura wears a Town Clothes top and Babáa pants. Pascal wears a Engel top and Ketiketa pants.
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- "It wasn’t really possible for me to take a formal maternity leave since Pansy is so small. I was still available to everyone who worked for me to answer emails and texts and take meetings. I run all our creative and social media and was still posting on Instagram every day from bed. I am good at setting my own boundaries and really tried to follow a 40-day rest period after birth. We were mostly undressed in bed for two weeks after giving birth and all we did was cuddle and sleep and breastfeed. I slowly started moving to other rooms in the house at three weeks and then the backyard. I loved this time so much. I kept telling my midwives that I felt like I had been waiting for someone to put me on bedrest my whole life. I took every meal in bed and my little angel just slept quietly next to me. I miss the days when he slept 22 hours!"
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- "My favorite pregnancy books were Erica Chidi Cohen’s Nurture and Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery. I just started reading Emily Oster’s Cribsheet, her followup to Expecting Better, another research-based pregnancy book I’d recommend. I mostly have been following my intuition so far and asking friends for advice when I feel the need to crowdsource information."
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- "Beatrice Valenzuela is a dear friend and mother I aspire to be like. She creates so much beauty in the world. Their house is filled with a lot of love and delicious food."
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- "My mom stayed at home and raised me and my two older sisters in Sacramento. My dad worked in politics. My extended family all lived close by and we spent lots of time together. We camped on holidays and gardened and played lots of soccer."
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- "I try to be relaxed and give Pascal lots of space to explore the world. We listen to music and dance. We co-sleep and breastfeed constantly so we are physically very close. He still feels like a piece of me in the world. I call him my sidekick. We do everything together. The longest we have been apart is five hours when I directed a Pansy shoot on a sailboat this May."
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- "I feel a responsibility to inform my child about the deep systems of oppression we live in and benefit from. The only way anything will change in our world is if we make sure that our kids understand that we can’t continue on this track and that the survival of humanity is going to necessitate a big shift."
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- "Listen to yourself and your baby. Be kind to yourself and rest as much as you can. Soak it all in and let go of any expectations you have for who you or your baby should be."
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- "I do. I would love to have another. Pregnancy was very challenging for me and I am still healing and grieving. I will probably need a lot more time before I try for another."
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- "Comfortable. I love knits and simple clothes that can stretch and move with my body. I love neutral creams but also color and patterns. I have a deep love of vintage. Only natural fibers."
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- "It’s the same. I feel like I have been moving toward mom clothes for a long time. I didn’t have to buy any new clothes while I was pregnant and it all transitioned to postpartum as well."
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- "I wear lots of Pansy, of course; that is my daily uniform. I love Town Clothes and Babaà and vintage."
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- A shelfie from a self-proclaimed lover of "tiny things."
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- "Everyday Oil and Earth Tu Face face balm are my main products. I like Fat and the Moon lip and cheek stain. I wash my face with water and exfoliate with almond meal and honey."
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- "I’m working on it. I don’t have a lot of time to myself. Taking a shower or bath. Watering the herbs in my garden. Having lunch with friends. Writing in Pascal’s baby journal."
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- "Between taking care of Pascal and Pansy, I don’t have many free moments. I have therapy and massages scheduled and, whenever there is time, I lounge in the sun on our deck."
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- "I am the owner and designer of Pansy, an organic cotton underwear and clothing company. I manage Pansy and do all the creative for it."
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Laura wears a vintage top, Ophelia Mikkelson bottom, and Beatrice Valenzeula shoes. Pascal wears a hand-knit sweater by Allison May Reilly, Ketiketa pants, and a Makie top.
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- "Back in 2012, there wasn’t a lot of good underwear available and none that was up to my ethical standards of using domestically grown organic cotton and natural elastic. I am very into local, sustainable agriculture and really wanted to find a way to reproduce the farm-to-table model with clothing."
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- "I grew up in the suburbs in Sacramento in Northern California and spent some of my teen years in L.A. with my dad. I went to UC Berkeley and studied Rhetoric and spent most of my time in the organic garden on campus learning how to compost and grow things. I’ve only lived in California. I feel so lucky to live in our beautiful state."
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- "I have had to take a step back from doing everything and giving my business all of my energy. My number one is Pascal and then Pansy. My pregnancy was such a challenging time for me that I took a step back from the business way before Pascal was born, and now he is over a year and I’m finally getting back into work mode. I am still home with him full time and it has been hard to let go of my usual expectations for myself because I am working with less time and energy than before. Things are happening on much slower timelines and I am becoming O.K. with that. I think that slower is better. It’s more human and sustainable. We have never accepted any outside funding and so I get to lead on my terms and slow down when I need to."
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- "My sister and father-in-law died a few months after Pascal was born, so our sweet newborn bliss had to share space with really intense grief. My sister was a big source of support for me during my pregnancy and postpartum, even while battling breast cancer. Most of my family is in Sacramento, so not too far away, and I text with friends from all over on a daily basis for support. Pascal just started going to the park every week with one of my good friends and it’s been a really nice break. Up until then, it was just me and my husband at home with him every day."
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- "Pascal is still so young that I feel really good about giving him most of my energy right now. I like to think of Pansy as my first child, and it prepared me for the amount of love and struggle that goes into raising a human child. Now that Pansy is 5-going-on-6-years old, it is more self-reliant, has other daily caretakers, and isn’t solely reliant on all my life energy, so I can give all of that to Pascal. My work is a retreat now mostly; there are moments when I am putting out fires, but most of the time I feel lucky to have something that needs an entirely different part of me than my family does. My friends are my sanity. They keep me grounded. When I feel overwhelmed, I call or write and that connection is everything."
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- "It isn’t something I have. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about myself in that way. I try to live in the present and dream about the future. I know I am doing the best I can and there are always things that I am working on, and parts of myself I am trying to heal. I stay at home with Pascal every day so I am more likely feeling bad about not giving Pansy more energy."
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- "I live my life on my terms and am very grateful for that privilege. I hope to impart that appreciation and show Pascal the impact he can have on the world by being kind and empathetic."
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- "I want to start exercising again and build back my strength. I want to launch a new Pansy site that my husband has been building this year. And I want to create so many new things for Pansy that I have been dreaming of the last two years and am now slowly beginning to make happen."
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For more on Laura, Pansy, and sweet Pascal, be sure to follow along on Instagram!
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love laura + pansy! great feature. x
Most beautiful person and mama in the world. ♥