The Best Maternity Plus-Size Dresses That Are Perfect For Curves

I recently tried to find fancy maternity dresses to wear to a party and unwittingly – and I’m trying really hard not to be overdramatic, here – plunged myself into hell. I live in London but could find almost no brands with a decent in-store presence, so instead spent two weeks ordering things online and dealing with an endless carousel of couriers, crushing disappointment and returns because nothing was even approaching “right”.

I thought it was common knowledge that when you’re pregnant, your boobs get bigger. If I had a fiver for every time I’d watched someone on screen complain about their boobs before realising they are pregnant I’d have enough to buy a house, or at least a decent bra to contain my suddenly-enormous norks. Can someone tell maternity clothing retailers this?

Many of the dresses I tried looked delightful on the slender models with perfect handfuls of boob (think tight-fitting cocktail dresses) but positively pornographic on me. If I was starring in my own pregnancy-themed strip show then they might have been okay, but if I wanted to go to a wedding and not have two-thirds of each tit on full display, they were utterly unusable. And that’s when I could even get the dresses on.

During pregnancy, a person’s body changes in myriad ways, but it seems that maternity clothing retailers mostly think pregnant people are straight up and down with a beachball glued to their belly button. It's tough to try and find the best maternity dresses on the market it seems. But here are some of the best you can find on the market now.

SHOP: The Best Maternity Plus-Size Dresses To Buy Right Now

Where Can I Shop Plus-Size Maternity Wear?

Though there is a range of plus-size maternity dresses on the market right now, I was still interested in how maternity clothes were being designed to make them different from regular clothes in bigger sizes. I contacted the retailers I’d had the most (New Look, Dorothy Perkins, Tu at Sainsburys, George at ASDA) and the least (ASOS, JoJo Maman Bébé) success with in the past to see what their process was.

To be honest, very few brands replied – possibly because they’re too busy, possibly because they thought we wouldn’t like the answers – but JoJo Maman Bébé emphasised that it has been making maternity wear for 25 years and that it “takes inspiration from current on-trend styles and adapts them to flatter the pregnant body shape to work during all stages of pregnancy, even after the birth. We know that most women can’t and shouldn’t be expected to go straight back into their pre-pregnancy wardrobe so we want our clothes to be suitable for breastfeeding and versatile enough to wear for months after.

”I love the sentiment here, and I must stress that JoJo Maman Bébé had one of the best going-out maternity ranges I came across, but of the three dresses I tried from them, all fit me perfectly around the body but left my boobs bursting out of the fabric like watermelons.

Which Brands To Shop For Plus-Size Dresses?

I should say at this point that I’m aware I will find maternity dressing more difficult than most. I’m a size 16-20, depending on the cut of a piece of clothing, and finding stylish maternity clothes above a size 14 is hard, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to spend. In most places, a generous limit was a size 18. As that’s my usual size in dresses and all the websites encourage you to “order in your pre-pregnancy size” I thought I’d be okay, but…no.

Dresses wouldn’t fit over my bigger hips or strained over my stomach and there usually just wasn’t a size bigger for me to go up to. Plus-size people exist, have babies and need clothes to wear while they're doing it but – like regular fashion, really – retailers are seemingly ignoring they exist.

Deflated, I asked the brands I contacted for their advice. Séraphine, one of the few maternity brands to cater to sizes over a 16 in wedding/bridesmaid dresses, say that 24% of the Clarice dresses were sold in a 16 or 18 and for me, they’d recommend I try a wrap dress. They sent me their “highly requested” Red Floral Bessie dress, worn by Myleene Klass, and when I tried it on it fit perfectly, with plenty of room for both my hips and my boobs. I’m wearing it to a birthday party this weekend.

JoJo Maman Bébé, meanwhile, encouraged me to “try to stay true to your pre-pregnancy style” – which is great advice, but I’m trying and I can’t bloody find anything – and to “avoid man-made fabrics, most of our dresses are made in cotton and viscose which help keep you cool”, which is a genuinely great tip.

New Look, which goes up to a size 20, suggested I try some of their dresses. I’ve been able to get excellent jeans and daywear from New Look (I’m spent the last few months basically living in their denim maxi dresses and I’m always complimented on it) but I’ve struggled to find anything dressier from them. They said that they design for customer needs and so don’t do a going-out range at the moment, especially considering their dresses or their (admittedly) excellent denim range can be dressed up for the evening.

For dinner with friends, this is fine but if I rocked up at my friend’s wedding in either a denim dress and heels or a pair of jeans and a nice top then I’d quite rightly be murdered, seven months pregnant or not. There absolutely is a need for maternity going-out wear, and I wish more brands would fill it.