In the real world, most of the women with a penchant for Pleats Please that I speak to began with the brand’s straight leg trousers and the tank dresses during their pregnancies. Many didn’t buy specific maternity-wear, and were determined to keep true to their own sense of style. Merle Carlet, a Berlin-based creative director, bought a set of straight leg black Pleats pants in her first trimester, then, a wider set of beige pants, and a Homme Plissé t-shirt. She wears her pants and the Madame T with chunky jewelry from Uncommon Matters, The Row sock slippers, and a Bottega Veneta Jodie bag.
“An outfit you put together yesterday may not fit tomorrow,” Carlet says. “I’m not able to wear anything like the usual pregnancy looks: I’m not a dress girl, no floral prints…I didn’t want to buy things that I will only wear during pregnancy.”
Pleats Please stretches itself to all of a pregnant person’s priorities. It is soft and comfortable, machine washable and easydrying, and grows with the belly.
London-based editor and writer Liv Siddall wore a coral, sleeveless and high-necked dress to a wedding when she was seven months pregnant and “absolutely enormous.” “There are so many aspects of the world that enrage and frustrate you during pregnancy, but the lack of chic or interesting maternity wear available is extraordinary,” she says. “The fun thing about this is that you have to really use your brain as to what will work on your growing shape.”
“Often, people just look at your belly and see you as a pregnant woman, rather than a woman in your own right,” says Siddall. “This Issey dress was like a big orange beacon that proclaimed to the world that I had a personality, an independent person with interests and style, as opposed to just an anonymous vessel carrying a baby.”
“I attended an Amina Muaddi store opening during my pregnancy and wore my A.M X AWGE heels, which have an embellished curb chain ankle strap. I wanted to make sure this was going to be shown, so I tucked the Pleats Pleases trousers into the chain which I think made the outfit!” says Fáizah Akindojuromi, a London-based creative director and producer. “I love that the lines of the pleats really emphasize the curves of the bump.”
