Bump It Up

‘ve decided to keep this simple.

The Good: If you are pregnant, planning on becoming pregnant, or just interested in pregnant fashion and you’re looking for a book that will cover all the basics of “preggo-chic,” you’ve found it. This book is packed with fashionable sketches, many from leading designers such as Nicole Miller, Donna Karan, Milly, Diane von Furstenberg, and Isaac Mizrahi. Honestly, even as a non-pregnant woman (and a never-in-a-million-years-planning-to-be-pregnant woman) I found a lot of the outfits cute and trendy. If you want to remain an A-list stylista while your waistline expands, you will seriously enjoy this book.

The Bad: The text of this book will lie to you. Period. In the introduction, Koch says that, “Armed with the basics and a flair for the dramatic, pregnant women can create maximum style with a minimum investment in maternity clothing.” She continually asserts throughout the book that her suggestions are easy on the pocket book. Yet this is patently false. You cannot turn a page in this book without being told to buy something, without finding a feature on the next wonder-garment for budding mothers.

Similarly contradictory are Koch’s notions of celebrating the pregnant body. On one page she tells her reader to, “Have fun with [her] bodacious newfound curves,” yet on another page she celebrates the “Miracle Product” Spanx Power Mama Mid-thigh Shaper, which “allows you to exert that last ounce of control over your growing body.” Despite Koch’s point that her reader should celebrate “le bump” when it arrives, one cannot help but notice that many of the sketches in this book of pregnant women wearing stylish clothing look like non-pregnant women wearing stylish clothing.

I actually have quite a few pregnant friends at the moment, and I can tell you that none of them look like the women depicted in the sketches that abound in this book. When looking through this book, one of my friends actually said, “that woman’s ribcage looks like it must be detached from the rest of her body,” referring to one of the sketches in which a woman’s upper body is drawn extremely awkwardly (read: impossibly) to hide her growing belly. The truth is, most of the advice about fashion in this book is less about celebrating pregnancy and more about hiding it. A lot of stylish pregnant women probably want advice like this, as thin is very in, but a word of warning is merited: Koch’s chipper-as-a-yippy-dog attitude about your expanding “preggo” body is really a giant farce. She’s trying to help you look as non-pregnant and stylish as possible. And don’t fool yourself–her advice isn’t going to save you any money doing it.

The Very Bad: There are very specific moments in this book at which I find myself feeling rather disgusted. Specifically, her style advice for the third trimester is rather appalling: “I don’t care what your friends have told you,” she says. “The final month of pregnancy is not for counting contractions over a tray of Fannie May Mint Melt-Aways. Month nine is all about preparation to look thoroughly divine in the delivery room…Do you want your gorgeous new baby overshadowed by your talons, unibrow, and frizzy tresses?” She goes on to suggest that the 8-month pregnant woman should keep her brows groomed, her pubic hair waxed, her nails manicured and pedicured and, this is just awful, prepare a make-up bag so she can freshen up her look after delivery. She even says that a near-delivery woman should get her hair blown out once a week because you never know when the big day might arrive. There are two things wrong with this. One, as an avid hair perfectionist, I can say that getting your hair blown out once a week will do nothing for you unless you also only bathe once a week. A blowout goes away once you shower, so I can’t imagine why this would be helpful.

Two, should a pregnant woman really be this concerned with how she looks when she’s about to deliver a baby, which will likely be the most painful thing she will ever go through in her entire life? I can forgive her advice telling pregnant women they should wear heels (Has she ever seen a pregnant woman’s feet when they swell? Even flip flops don’t fit.) but I can’t forgive this advice. Almost every pregnant woman I have ever known agrees that the way you look when giving birth is the last thing you’re concerned about when you’re giving birth. For christ’s sake, you poop everywhere when you give birth. No matter what you do, it will not be pretty, and it doesn’t need to be.  And her advice on this, to me, seems extremely backward. Did she write this book in the 1950s?

Back to the Good: Yet, this is my opinion. I will still assert that if you like the idea of staying stylish while you’re pregnant, and don’t mind putting a lot of effort and money into it, you’ll likely really enjoy this book. If you’re like most of my friends, scraping money together for strollers and cribs, working and tired during your pregnancy, you likely won’t have much use for this book, and might, in the end, be offended by it.