Expect the Best

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Matthias' success has taught mainstream designers an important lesson: there's money in maternity. "Business school 101 is find a need and fill it," says Julie Chaiken, whose eponymous high-end fashion label introduced Chaiken with Child two years ago. "A good percentage of our customers are pregnant, and we don't want to lose them for nine months." At the request of special clients like Cindy Crawford and supermodel Vendela, Chaiken began creating a maternity version of its signature pants--with elastic in the waistband and an emphatic lack of ugly front pouches. Scouts at high-end department stores like Barneys New York heard about the designer's expanding waistlines and asked for wider production. "There was initially some trepidation," says Chaiken. "Other designers would say, 'Really, you're doing that?' A year later, a lot of them had also jumped in." This year 11% of Chaiken's spring-collection sales were maternity; for fall it was 15%. "Overall our sales are growing, but maternity is growing even faster," Chaiken says.

Chaiken with Child has brought the designer new customers, who then stick with Chaiken clothes after they have had their babies. That kind of opportunity is not lost on Gap, which is putting its maternity clothes into stores already stocked with the proven babyGap line. "It's a brilliant strategy," says Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Black. "She's buying maternity clothes and baby clothes. Then the baby clothes turn into kids' clothes, the kids' clothes turn into adult clothes. It's a growing market, no pun intended."

Spin-off industries are also blossoming, such as Liza Elliott-Ramirez's Expecting Models, founded in July 2001. "When I started modeling 20 years ago, pregnancy was something you hid," she says. "But when I was pregnant [in 2000], I never worked so much." Business has quadrupled since the agency opened, and some of the 100 pregnant models on Elliott-Ramirez's books command as much as $10,000 a day. "It's a huge and booming market," she says. "There are new vendors every day, as they realize pregnant women are consumers who want to look good."

Andrea O'Reilly, president of the Association for Research on Mothering, says she's heartened that designers have finally recognized that pregnant women deserve their attention. Still, she's concerned that the emphasis on looking good could create unrealistic expectations. "It's double-edged, because it also sets standards even higher," she says. "It's hard enough being pregnant ... now you've got to look stylish?" At least today's mothers-to-be truly have that option.