How to look good pregnant
You don’t have to change your style when you’re pregnant, says Emily Cronin… Meet the maternity brands rewriting the rules of fashion for mothers-to-be
First she wished me congratulations – then Kate snatched my iphone from the restaurant table and began tapping away. “Here,” she said, thrusting it back toward me, screen up. “You’ve got to order one of these right away.”
I’d just told her I was pregnant, and my friend, three months ahead of me, wanted to talk online shopping? Thankfully her recommendation had nothing to do with swaddles, sleeptraining guides or (ugh) hypnobirthing books. It was a jumpsuit – identical to the one she had on and swore she’d worn for the past three days straight – from Beyond Nine, a new, London-based brand specialising in jumpsuits designed for all women, not just those inhabiting the temporary state of pregnancy.
A lot has changed since my first pregnancy, five years ago. Back then, maternity options seemed depressingly divided between the abjectly disposable and the offputtingly expensive. The most stylish pregnant women I encountered wrinkled their noses at both approaches, insisting that their regular wardrobes took them most of the way through, until they hit the third trimester and deigned to go up a size. I was expecting twins – this was never going to be an option. (Picture the Hindenburg and you get the idea.)
So how did I play it? Given that I never expected to be expecting again, I took the cheap route. I wore a mix of garishly patterned ASOS Maternity dresses and American Apparel tunics with over-the-bump leggings, busting the seams on more than one pair. Anything that survived I gave away as soon as possible, only because I was too exhausted to figure out how to burn it without waking the babies.
And here we are five years later. No, it’s not twins. Yes, I’m still convinced I’ll never do this again – for real this time. But the maternity market has moved on. Now, along with the Duchess of Cambridge-approved vendors of bump-wear (Seraphine mixed with bespoke Jenny Packham and Erdem – nice if you can get it) and the faster, trendier high-street offerings (Topshop, the aforementioned ASOS Maternity), there’s a small but influential crop of brands that promise clothes to suit women during and beyond pregnancy.
The matriarch of the genre is Hatch Collection, a Us-based brand that launched in 2011 and is still the only maternity-ish brand on Net-a-porter.com.
“I was surprised to see how the notion of feeling stylish while pregnant was kind of taboo,” says founder Ariane Goldman, who felt “ostracised from fashion” when expecting her daughter. Now she offers objectively cute dresses, broderie anglaise tops and cashmere jumpers with an aspirational West Coast vibe, all under the tag-line, “for before, during & after”. It’s very easy to imagine wanting to wear these pieces once you reach the “after”, thanks to the fact that Goldman photographs every piece on models with and without bumps. She recently introduced bump sheet masks and other pregnancy-specific beauty products, but says that when it comes to clothes, 20per cent of her customers aren’t pregnant. In the UK, Clary & Peg offers “vintage-inspired maternityfriendly womenswear” like dungarees, hippie floral dresses and button-through pinafores. “Maternity is a difficult word to overcome in fashion,” says co-founder Edwina Gieve. “But you can wear unique, standout pieces that feel good, that you want to wear.”
One of the newest additions to the group is Beyond Nine. When Naomi Raybould was pregnant with her first child a few years ago, she found maternity clothes “really lazy – I saw the same skin-tight, bodycon dresses everywhere, things I never would have worn if I wasn’t pregnant.” Then her mother handed over her Eighties maternity “doowhoppers,” aka jumpsuits. Despite their garish colours, “they were a revelation.” Raybould launched her line of minimal cotton and linen jumpsuits six months ago, the day before delivering her second baby. “They’re super-super comfortable – like being in your PJS, but much more put-together,” she says. This versatility doesn’t always come cheap – with dresses costing around £300, Hatch’s prices are more in line with those of contemporary brands than the rest of the maternity category. But longevity makes them a more convincing value proposition. The new bump-agnostic mat-wear also chimes with our heightened awareness of the importance of sustainability in our wardrobes. “We really should wear and invest in things we wear regardless of whether we’re pregnant or not,” Raybould says.
Amen, sister. Frankly I think these women are brilliant and their brands godsends. Although there exists a sizeable contingent of women wealthy enough to ignore the high cost of premium maternity clothing, most women still seem allergic (or far too practical) to countenance spending a bomb on clothes they’ll only wear for a few months. Thanks to clever adaptations – adjustable straps, oversized cuts, hidden elasticated panels – most of their clothes resemble items you already have in your wardrobe, rather than any belted-over-the-bump wrap-dress monstrosity.
And catwalk fashion trends of late have tended toward maternitycompatible – a gift to anyone who would rather steer clear of the
maternity category altogether. Nine in the Mirror offers an “expectant edit” of designer and contemporary pieces that aren’t strictly geared toward maternity, but will accommodate a bump. “Women want to buy a few things that make them feel good and aren’t disposable,” says co-founder Adriana Chryssicopoulos. She takes a faux bump to every buying appointment so she can see what works, and what does ends up looking like a tasty mix of dresses from La Double J, Mary Katrantzou and Emilia Wickstead.
You can also pave your own way, if you don’t mind putting in some time in the fitting room. Brands like Tibi, M.i.h Jeans and Paul & Joe do a strong line in wafty dresses with enough room to accommodate a bump (27 weeks, in my case). On the high street, H&M, & Other Stories and M&S have all embraced the waistless nightgowndress aesthetic – midi-dresses being imperative during a stage when bumps raise hemlines to risqué territory. Of course one of the more enjoyable side effects is curves – everything round is supposed to be round, and it’s taut, as opposed to later, when (to quote my daughter) it’s just “squishy.” Sometimes you just have to lean into the physical changes by wearing a tight dress.
During a recent holiday in Greece, along with my Beyond Nine jumpsuit (make that jumpsuits – I bought the striped linen one after wearing it for the shoot) and Hatch and Tibi dresses, I lived in a maternity tank dress from Isabella Oliver. Made of tight, ruched stretch-cotton jersey in red (Really! As in, not navy!), it was nothing like the clothes I loved before I was pregnant, or hoped to default to at some point in the not-distant future. But if you’ve got it, flaunt it – once in awhile, anyway.