Fashion 87 : Mothers-to-Be Prefer to Bide Time in Styles of the Moment
Maternity manufacturers like to joke that there are three, not two, certainties of life--death, taxes and pregnant women.
But nobody’s laughing in the business these days.
It’s been a struggle ever since last fall, when the oversize look in women’s fashion was very much the rage. Suddenly, women up to six- or even seven-months pregnant could fit into the latest street fashions--with ease. And a significant number of them ignored maternity shops altogether.
“A woman could walk into the Gap or Benetton and find the same sort of oversize sweater or top that she could get in maternity shops--and at the same price,” says Judy Loeb of Sweet Mama, a leading New York maternity designer who, nearly 10 years ago, dared to print “Pregnant” in rhinestones on a T-shirt with an arrow pointing to the tummy.
“This was a difficult year for us, no doubt about it,” she adds, saying sales were at their lowest in October and November, 1986.
While designers all say business has bounced back this spring, it was clearly no accident. The recent shake-up forced the industry to re-evaluate the nature of its customers,
and the result is a spring flooded with lace, rhinestones, black leather, faded jeans, safari shorts and, finally, big, billowy shirts, sweaters and jackets.
Most designers agree that the biggest lesson to come out of their recent postpartum depression is that pregnant women still want whatever is in fashion at the moment--and if they can’t get it in maternity shops, they’ll go elsewhere. Never mind if the “in look” makes them look dowdy or even bigger than they really are--if it’s “the look,” mothers-to-be will go for it.
Another revelation is that pregnant women all over the country are dressing more casually than ever before. Jumpers with prim, white blouses are definitely on the wane and so are stiff, conservative business suits. Working women are said to prefer casual, unconstructed suits and, in Los Angeles at least, will often don leggings and a big sweater for the office.
Finally, designers such as Loeb confess that the upset merely accentuated an old truism in the maternity business concerning the buying habits of mothers-to-be.
“We are constantly battling the psychology of: ‘If I can get away with not buying maternity, Iwill.’ The oversize trend in ready-to-wear just made it all that more difficult to fight back.”
Adds Sabine Brouillet, owner of Pink and Blue Diffusion, one of the leading West Coast maternity lines: “A woman will do anything to delay buying maternity clothes until she can’t fit into anything else. She likes to say she got her clothes from anywhere but a maternity shop.
“Maybe it makes her feel as if she isn’t really all that huge, that she is still tiny and can fit into regular street clothes. The oversize trend simply enabled her to fool herself for a greater length of time.”
Brouillet first opened her three Pink and Blue boutiques in Los Angeles in1984. The shops, filled with exquisite, French designer clothes and accessories, were an immediate hit, attracting superstars such as Olivia Newton-John and Cristina Ferraro Thomopoulos. When theslump hit last year, however, Brouillet fought back by dropping prices on her regular line and by starting a less expensive maternity line called “Nouvelle Vague.”
Her next step was to dress down the line, offering a wider, more versatile range of casual clothes such as sweats, leggings, oversize tops with drawstring pants and casual, knit, rugby striped-dresses.
Finally, Brouillet saw to it that all separates in the shops coordinated with each other, so a woman would buy the big tops in her shop and not somewhere else.
Brouillet, whose Nouvelle Vague line is now sold in about 400 stores across the country, says:”When I first started here, I offered very elegant, very French, one-of-a-kind clothes. But I soon learned that women here don’t want to look like that. They want to look like everybody else. It’s so simple, isn’t it?”
Loeb’s strategy was similar. She offers a whole new range of bottoms, including safari shorts, bleached- and faded-denim jeans, snap-to-fit trousers and leggings--all with expandable flaps or panels in front or back. Also offered are lace petticoats and rhinestone-studded sweats. Nothing, she says, is too sexy, too trendy or too young.
Geraldine Warner, owner of the six-store chain in California called Today’s Maternity, agrees. “The key is, would I buy that for myself?”
Maternity designers may have learned their lesson, but it looks as if the whole issue may be moot this fall. Word is that the fashion world is tightening its belt and that clothes will be shaped and sculptured for winter.
Bobbie Paskow, editor of Maternity Matters trade magazine, says:”We’ve heard the elusive dart is making its way into blouses and dresses for fall ’87. This heralds a booming year. . . .”
