In her 1993 autobiographical novel, Heartburn, Nora Ephron wrote, ‘If pregnancy were a book, they would cut the last two chapters.’ But allow Rihanna to suggest something better: a rewrite.
Since she unveiled her pregnancy in January, Rihanna has been revising the maternity playbook. Nowhere can you see her dedication to overhauling plotlines more clearly than in the clothes she’s been wearing. As she told Bustle at the Fenty launch at ULTA Beauty in March, ‘I’m not going to buy maternity clothes. I’m not gonna buy maternity pants, jeans, dresses, or [do] whatever society told me to do before.’ And in her new American Vogue cover interview, she was forced to defend her choices, explaining: 'I’m sorry—it’s too much fun to get dressed up. I’m not going to let that part disappear because my body is changing.'
From the off it was obvious that her pregnancy was going to be a smock-free zone. Tent dresses? Begone! Comfort dressing? Banished! Hiding away? Forget about it! Rather Rihanna has been leaning into haute, high-stakes super glam and been unafraid to take up space.
That first bump shot – the choreographed paparazzi moment that sent the internet into meltdown – said it all. There she was in the New York snow in a vintage Chanel coat and chain belt. Pooling at the floor, her low-slung XXL jeans (the kind that haunt our teen years) were proof that, pregnant or not, Rihanna can pull off things we mere mortals would best steer clear of (that didn’t stop us trying, however: according to global fashion shopping platform Lyst, searches for baggy jeans increased by 59% in the 24 hours following the grand unveiling).
But the most striking thing about the look, however, was her bare bump perfectly framed by that hot pink Chanel, and blessed by the gargantuan Christian Lacroix cross nestled on top.
Since the big reveal, she has gone on to give more glorious, glamorous, high fashion looks a whirl, like the ready-to-party metallic fringed set from The Attico, a hooded lipstick red leather dress from Alaïa and a custom Coperni cropped top and spangled skirt, worn with a Messika belly chain. (‘I wanted to pay tribute to this joyful time with a drape of diamonds majestically surrounding Rihanna’s belly,’ says Valérie Messika. ‘We know the diamond is an energetic stone and I wanted to bring good energy to the baby.’) The baggy teen-dream denim has been out and about again, but worn with glitzy Amina Muaddi or Tom Ford heels and weeny bra tops.
The most seductive thing about Rihanna’s pregnancy looks is not the revealing of the bump per se, but of her body full stop. Is there anything that changes a woman’s body, and so visibly heralds her arrival into a new stage of life, more than pregnancy? But all of us – whether we’ve ever or never been pregnant – have experienced fluctuations in our bodies. That’s why we’re cheering her on from the sidelines and it’s why her maternity style matters.
Pregnancy is usually the result of having sex, and yet society commonly desexualises women as soon as they embark on motherhood. We are bombarded with thirsty imagery and yet feel oddly squeamish about allowing pregnant women to enter that space. So, that Rihanna is still looking boldly sexy (deliberately, although could she ever look anything else?) also feels noteworthy. See the sheer Christian Dior negligee she wore to the maison’s Paris Fashion Week show, which ensured all eyes were on her, or the spangled Gucci minidress and lilac faux fur coat she wore to the house’s after-party in Milan.
It’s not just a rallying call to alert us to the fact that, bluntly, mums can still be hot, but also a reminder that all women, all people for that matter, can be many things at once. So yes, Rihanna is pregnant, but she’s also a style icon, singer, billionaire entrepreneur, and so on. You too contain multitudes.
Her Instagram caption on the reveal photo – ‘how the gang pulled up into black history month’ – is also vital. She is aware of the double standards society applies to different bodies. Black women are habitually denied the freedoms white women take for granted. It’s OK for a pregnant Demi Moore to pose naked on the cover of Vanity Fair; Meghan Markle gets derided as an attention seeker for protectively, instinctively cradling her (fully clothed) bump.
Coincidentally, there are designers who are on the same page when it comes to dressing pregnant bodies. Take Nensi Dojaka, whose twisted lingerie-inspired dresses are hot property right now. In her A/W ’22 show at London Fashion Week, she dressed the pregnant model Maggie Maurer in a shimmering, sheer slip, saying backstage that she wanted ‘to introduce a wider concept of what this woman can be’.
Motherhood is not celebrated or represented enough in fashion.
Then there’s Di Petsa designer Dimitra Petsa, whose wet-look goddess dresses have routinely been shown on women of all shapes and sizes, including those with baby bumps (Gigi Hadid wore one for her own pregnancy reveal). She tells Grazia, ‘For me it is really important that when designing for women I can look at all the different expressions of their body. A woman’s body changes so much all the time, especially the belly, not only when pregnant. Motherhood and all the changes that their bodies and soul are going through is something that is not celebrated or represented enough in fashion. Quite the contrary: there is a pressure to always stay the same, frozen in time, so I really wanted to go against that and offer a different narrative’.
Narrative is integral to Rihanna’s marvel of a maternity wardrobe. What is as uplifting as the joy and glamour she radiates is that she still looks completely like Bad Gal, as fabulous as ever, no more likely to hide under an invisibility cloak of parenthood than A$AP Rocky is. The bump is present in every pap shot – out, proud – and yet it is only part of the story.
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