Sinead Corcoran Dye: Why are there no cool maternity dresses?

A well-dressed Sinead Corcoran Dye. Photo/ Sylvie Whinray

It’s frills or frump, says Sinead Corcoran Dye on the fruitless search for a stylish maternity frock.

Last weekend I looked over my very lovely husband’s shoulder to see him deep in concentration, googling “funky maternity dresses for the bigger lady”.

I don’t often write nice earnest things about my husband because my love language is being mean to him, but it was honestly the sweetest thing ever and made me tear up.

Because every day for the past million weeks I have been furiously hunting for a dress to wear to a black-tie event next month, at which point I’ll be seven-and-a-half-months pregnant.

In my travels and at least 40-400 hours of painful Googling I have established the following – and only the following – maternity dresses exist.

Cotton, floral-print, or gingham off-the-shoulder dresses with a hem ruffle, which on the slender, bohemian woman would look beautiful while she’s picking wildflowers in a meadow or having an epidural-free home birth in a river. On the bigger-busted woman, they would make her look like a pirate wench.

Sexless, oversized, T-shirt-sleeved sacks made of stretchy jersey material. They will also usually have a chest flap you can peel back for breastfeeding on the go. Top tip, if you’re pregnant and not yet breastfeeding, don’t try these flaps out in front of your partner. I once attempted this in a sultry manner and my husband screamed at me to never do it again because “a boob should never be unveiled in that way”.

Skin-tight bandage-style dresses made of polyester mesh, which are flattering on the curves for sure but they also look very sweat-shoppy and you will certainly catch on fire if you stand near an open flame.

And of course, there’s the school of thought that says you don’t need to buy maternity clothes, just buy a nice normal dress in a size up from your usual size. But I can’t.

A few years ago, I was a curvy but flat-stomached and svelte size 10.

A few big snacky lockdowns later, coupled with 30kg of antidepressant weight gain and the permanent bloating and puffiness that IVF blessed me with, I am now a size 16 – and that’s without the baby bump.

With my baby belly, and my pregnancy boobs that are somehow even bigger than my swollen face, I’m probably pushing a size 18-20. So, in mainstream fashion, I do not exist.

Prior to my weight gain I was a thin-privileged little idiot who took it completely for granted that I could walk into any store, and they’d have my size. Now I know that most brands only go up to a 14 or a 16 at the most, so me and my pregnant belly are apparently not welcome – along with a ton of other Kiwi women.

I looked it up and the average gal in New Zealand is a size 16. And yes, there are some options for the curvier woman, but the styles are usually pretty mumsy and frumpy.

I don’t want to wear cap sleeves because they’re apparently flattering on chubby upper arms. I don’t want my only option to be a wrap dress because it’s apparently forgiving on belly rolls. And I don’t know who decided that big girls love scratchy sparkly sequins. To match their big razzly-dazzly personalities?

I’m 30 years old and I want to look 30 years old, not 55. I don’t want to buy a dress from somewhere called Big Juicy Mamas, I want to be able to go to Superette or David Jones like I used to.

The only label I have found that caters to bigger-bodied women who still want to wear nice, cool, well-made and quality fabric clothes is local brand, Ruby. Its beautiful clothes go up to size 24, and if you fall outside of this size range, they will custom-make pieces for the standard retail price. Legends.

But if my billion hours thrashing Google have somehow missed some chic, plus-sized, maternity gems that you know of, I beg you, please DM me. I have just a few weeks to find something good to cloak this big preggo body in and I shiver at the thought of what my kind and well-meaning husband will come home with for his “funky bigger lady”.