“Maternity wear has evolved significantly and is becoming more and more stylish. Today’s woman no longer feels the need to compromise her style or trends just because she’s pregnant,” agrees Paige Adams Geller, founder of Paige Denim. “At Paige, we focus on building on our best-selling styles and growing our maternity wear selection each season so our customers can maintain the same fit and style they’ve always wanted.”
So what is truly empowering about maternity wear in 2024, and where does the line between empowerment and unrealistic expectations become blurred?
Are gender roles simply collapsing only to be reconstructed?
Motherhood is just one of the stages of a woman’s life that has been reinvented recently. “Gen Z is redefining traditions, not abolishing them,” agrees Singh. “Last year we saw wedding wear modernize into bridalcore,” she adds, noting the rise of “cool girl wedding dresses” that reimagine centuries-old traditions. “It’s no wonder that maternity wear will next be adorned with tradition-breaking touches specific to Gen Z and loaded with references to modern technology (see: Schiaparelli’s Electro Baby).”
DTS calls the larger zeitgeist trend “womancore,” referring to an explosion of core and niche microtrends that cater to different aspects of what it means to be a woman. But not everyone is excited about this development. “I think a lot of the popular aesthetics right now, whether it’s the clean girl or the gangster wife, work to compartmentalize and sometimes undermine female agency,” says fashion critic Alexandra Hildreth.
“Current [pregnancy] “The whole goal of the beauty movement is to look as put together as possible all the time, even when you’re nine months pregnant,” she continued, pointing to the “tradwife” movement spearheaded by creator Nara Smith, who just gave birth to her third baby at age 22. Smith posts TikTok videos of herself cooking for her husband and kids, often wearing new Chanel or Miu Miu. She posted TikTok content almost every day during her pregnancy, garnering millions of views. “She’s an incredibly popular and talked-about model and creator, but [for brands] “Her departure, in terms of clothing and gift-giving, is symbolic of people turning to this more traditional, conservative aesthetic,” Hildreth says.
Rihanna photographed outside the Dior show during Paris Fashion Week.
Photo: Edward Barthelot/Getty Images
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