Less than a week before Mother’s Day and the birth of her baby boy, Vanja, with partner Sinisa Mackovic, Chloë Sevigny took a walk out in New York City. At one point, she hiked up her Mickey Mouse–print T-shirt to reveal her baby bump, allowing it bask in the sun. Clearly, Sevigny was enjoying every inch of her heavenly pregnancy body. In fact, each time the 45-year-old actor had stepped out as a mom-to-be, she seemed to look ever more glowing. Back in late February, she posted a casual Instagram of herself strolling around at the MoMA dressed in a particularly cool cropped black blouse and black flares that left a slither of her growing tummy exposed. A month later, while attending an event for the New Group’s 25th annual gala, she elevated her outfit, opting for a curve-hugging floral-print dress along with white bobby socks and black loafers, a classic Sevigny downtown-minded look. Her daring fashion choices only served to enhance her baby bump as an unabashed celebration of motherhood and new life.
Of course, the art of the stylish bump reveal is hardly new for high-profile mothers-to-be. In the late ’90s, a wave of Hollywood pregnancies took the spotlight on the red carpet. Among the most risk-taking dressers was Jada Pinkett Smith, who, while expecting her son Jaden at the time, showed up at the Grammy Awards in 1998 wearing a slinky bedazzled dress to outline her beautiful bump. Around the same time, Victoria Beckham was pregnant for the first time with her eldest son, Brooklyn. She turned heads on her way home from a glamorous party in London flaunting a dazzling skin-tight spaghetti-strap dress that put her curves on full display.
We have cool mom-of-three Kate Hudson to thank for introducing the skin-revealing maternity look in the early aughts. At the Venice Film Festival in 2003, she arrived wearing a slinky cropped, bedazzled tank and a low-slung skirt that put her rounded midriff front and center. The following year, Erykah Badu took a similar tack when she appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno wearing a hat and a torso-revealing black top that was held closed by one single button.
More recently, rising stars like actor Jodie Turner Smith have emerged with a modern approach to maternity style. Smith, who welcomed her first child with actor Joshua Jackson last month, wowed the audience of The Graham Norton Show in January with her forward-thinking sense of style. Perched on the sofa opposite the British talk show host, she looked stunning in a midriff-baring crop top that was chicly knotted over one shoulder and accessorized with a glittering diamante choker and her extra-short bob.
As far as fashionable pregnancy reveals go, though, no one does it quite like Beyoncé. She went public with the news that she was expecting on the stage of the VMAs back in 2011, casually unbuttoning her sparkling sequin blazer to show her adorable protruding bump. Rubbing her tummy and smiling from ear to ear, she proved that actions often speak louder than words. It was a moment that was only to be matched six years later at the Grammy Awards, when the singer, then pregnant with twins, radiated mother-goddess energy dressed for her mesmerizing performance in a jaw-dropping golden dress.
In anticipation of Mother’s Day, see the 19 most stylish ways to dress the baby bump below.
