Hey friends! It has been TOO long since my last style guide, so I decided to start the series back up – as a maternity edition! For those of you who may be newer to the blog, I started blogging a monthly style guide a year and a half ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) After finding out we were expecting our little Ellie, I decided to shelve the style guides for a while. And then something happened that made me want to start them back up!

As my usable closet began to dwindle the bigger I got, I knew I would have to find some new maternity clothes. I took to the internet to get some maternity fashion inspiration – and I was met with crickets! I was so surprised to find little to no help on how I could remain trendy while pregnant. While there are tons of stores (I will do a separate blog post with my favorite brands and stores for maternity clothes) there were almost no resources that gave any kind of outfit inspiration!

So, while I feel like a beached whale and not exactly in the modeling mood, I knew that if my style guides helped at least one other expecting mama stay fashionable while pregnant than it would be totally worth it!

This first maternity style guide is about utilizing pieces that you already have. While every expecting mom is different, I did not really start to show until around 4 months, and then I kind of popped! So until then I could use pretty much all of my same clothes. However, once I popped, I went through ALL of my clothes and kept a few key pieces that I knew could work a majority of my pregnancy. The first were most of my off the shoulder dresses. These tended to be more flowy and less form fitting, which meant that it didn’t really matter how big my belly grew. What you want to watch out for: length! Some of my shorter off the shoulder dresses had to go, since my growing belly made them even shorter. A tip for off the shoulder dresses is that you can bring the sleeves down lower to make your dress a little longer, if needed. I really love using off the shoulder looks for maternity because it is super comfortable and still on trend!

 

 

For my second outfit, I went a little riskier. One of my staples that I always have in my closet is a go-to tunic. I have several from Free People (the one below is a Free People tunic) and they tend to be flattering for all shapes and sizes, making them perfect for maternity! I love tunics in general because they can be versatile, and that holds true for maternity style as well. While I could have paired it with leggings or a pair of shorts, I decided to pair this with a tan body con dress. The body con dress is not maternity, just one that I had laying around – and I probably won’t be able to wear it for much longer! That is where the risky part comes into play. While the body con was technically long enough, if I walked around for too long I would have to keep pulling it down to prevent it from riding up too much. So just be sure to wear your outfit around the house for a bit before taking it out to the real world! Other than that I will be able to wear this tunic throughout my entire pregnancy, I will just need to pair it with some other pieces once I get a little bigger.

Thanks to my wonderful hubby Alfred for taking these pictures!

xo Kirby