It was a moment of pure joy at a Paris fashion week sobered by the shadow of war. Rihanna sailed into the Dior show like a galleon in full sail, pregnancy bump lightly veiled in a sheer black negligee of lace-trimmed dotted Swiss tulle. The veteran fashion critic Tim Blanks, who quizzed the pop star backstage as to whether she was expecting a boy or a girl – she wasn’t telling – described her as “the most radiant expectant mother … a real ray of light on a dark day.”
In the month since the unofficial new “Queen of Barbados” announced her pregnancy by posing for the paparazzi photographer Miles Diggs on a snowy New York street with a vintage Chanel pink coat unbuttoned to reveal a naked bump crowned with a cascade of gold and gemstone jewellery, Rihanna has done more than push the boundaries of maternity wear. In characteristic form, she is challenging expectations of how women in the public eye should look and behave.
Rihanna, who wore a fluffy lavender coat over a black latex crop top at Gucci and a peach leather mini dress for the Off-White show, has not been the only expectant mother in the spotlight at this month of fashion shows. At the young designer Nensi Dojaka’s London fashion week show, the tissue-thin sequined slip worn by the model Maggie Maurer celebrated her four-month pregnant shape. “I think it’s quite shocking – in a good way,” Maurer told Vogue. “Women’s bodies are like superpowers.”
In the age of optics, announcing a pregnancy via the medium of fashion has established itself as a power move. A timeline shift toward ever more daring takes on bump-dressing can be tracked via the maternity fashion of a thought leader in this field, Beyoncé. When Beyoncé revealed her first pregnancy in 2011 at the MTV Video Music Awards during her performance of Love on Top – by unbuttoning her sequined blazer and turning to give the audience a profile view – the bump was demurely covered-up in a white shirt and high-waisted trousers.
By the time Beyoncé was pregnant with twins in 2017, the rules of engagement had altered. This time around, Beyoncé made the reveal wearing only a bra and satin knickers, cradling her bump in front of a flower arbour with a veil falling over her shoulders as softly as the hair of Botticelli’s Venus, in an image that set a new record for Instagram likes.
Last year, Cardi B leaned into the performative, bespoke-outfitted pregnancy reveal while on stage at the BET awards, in a black bodysuit which was barnacled all over with rhinestones, except for a porthole-shaped window of sheer black mesh which framed her swelling tummy.
Rihanna is highly strategic about which elements of her private life she shares – she lived in London for a full year without alerting the paparazzi to the fact until an eagle-eyed fan spotted a Sainsbury’s Bag for Life in the background of one of her social media posts – and the high-visibility wardrobing of her pregnancy is deliberate. “I’m really pushing into the idea of sexy,” she told the Refinery29 website. “When you get pregnant, society tends to make it feel like you hide […] you’re sexy and that you’re not sexy right now [but] you’ll get back there and I don’t believe in that shit.”
The new hot take on maternity wear is a refreshing inversion of popular culture’s obsession with narrow female bodies. Glorifying a woman’s body during the months when it is gets bigger broadens the Overton window around which female bodies are considered aspirational and worthy of celebration.
Wearing sheer lingerie and black patent spike heels while pregnant bumps up against ingrained expectations not just about what women wear, but about how they should behave. Traditionally, maternity wear has regressed the wardrobe of grown women into childlike pastels and twee Peter Pan collars, as if to suggest that expectant mothers should be seen and not heard.
When a heckler berated Rihanna for holding up Dior’s show this week, repeatedly shouting “You’re late” as the star was ushered to her front row seat, an unhurried Rihanna shot an unsmiling glance over her shoulder and deadpanned: “No shit.”
