Bianca BaltiIs Changing The Maternity Fashion Conversation

With her new label, supermodel Bianca Balti is setting out to change the conversation around maternity fashion.

- Madeline Woon

Stylish isn’t a word we readily associate with maternity wear. Sure, practical options are aplenty — elastic waistbands that promise to expand in harmony with swelling bellies and stretchy jersey dresses that accommodate the ballooning of one’s midsection — but finding an outfit that makes you feel glamorous or, dare we say, sexy? Unlikely. It’s a gaping hole that supermodel Bianca Balti is looking to plug with her eponymous new fashion line, which debuted at Milan fashion week this past September.

When I phone Balti at her family home in California, she is taking a rare pause from her busy schedule (alongside the brand and her work as a model, Balti has two daughters – Matilde, 12, and Mia, three). From the outset, her warm and ebullient energy is palpable and contagious.

As is the way with many fashion brands, Balti’s maternity line was born out of need. “During my first pregnancy I had a hard time finding things to wear to special occasions, and especially when I attended Festival de Cannes,” she recalls. “I really struggled. I think it’s such a wonderful moment in a woman’s life, yet I really felt upset and uncomfortable and ugly at times — I felt that I had to give up on my style. I made a promise to myself back then — One day, I am going to fill the gap.”

Fast-forward 11 years and she’s made good on that pledge. In accordance with her slow fashion ethos, the road from her initial lightning bolt of inspiration to launching has been a long and considered one, not without its share of doubt-shaped speed bumps.