Recently, a friend called to tell Charlene Prempeh she was pregnant. Before she had finished the teary “What am I going to—,” Prempeh had the answer. What to wear when your life and body are suddenly in a state of flux? Issey Miyake. Her friend bought four pairs of Pleats Please trousers and several tops. “Suddenly, at least one part of being pregnant was less terrifying,” says Prempeh.
When Prempeh was three months pregnant, amid sleep deprivation and doctors appointments, she considered two things: “How could I avoid purchasing clothes I didn’t like, and how could I look like a version of myself I recognized.” The London-based founder of A Vibe Called Tech, a creative studio and art consultancy, wore various shapes and colors of the easy-moving, elegant Pleats Please at work and on weekends. “All the while, no one would know that I was in a permanent state of pre-baby panic.”
“I have a general aversion to irons or anything that requires fuss, yet would ideally like to look like I’ve not been dragged through a hedge,” she adds. “What I love about Pleats Please is that it suggests exactly that sentiment, and also that you love clothes, and are sometimes busy thinking about the state of the world, or reading L.A. Paul.”
The accordion-like pleats of the late Japanese designer Issey Miyake have amassed a cult following since his launch of the standalone label in 1993—but his fascinations with the body’s contours, and how fabrics could both worship and interweave with the story of our form, were long held. “The space created between the clothes and the body is what interests me and communicates the most,” he once said.
Miyake worked with Makiko Minagawa to develop pioneering techniques that became the final Pleats Please design: crafted from high-quality polyester that is soft, compact, and weightless. It is made using over three times the amount of cloth as the size of the final piece, so the fabric stretches with movement, the concertina shapes creating dimension. But it is less about fashion, and more about functionality—especially, when life is in evolving into something new, like maybe, when you’re growing another human.
Issey Miyake is maternitywear for the women who refuse to collapse personal style into the pre- and post-natal sartorial lexicon of tent dresses, dungarees, and paneled jeans. Pregnancy fashion unfurls with Pleats Pleases’s joyous, undulating designs. Rihanna—a daring maternitywear matriarch—recently wore a spring 2001 Issey Miyake dress made from sculptural, sorbet-toned pleats.
In the real world, most of the women with a penchant for Pleats Please that I speak to began with the brand’s straight-leg trousers and the tank dresses during their pregnancies. Many didn’t buy specific maternity-wear, and were determined to keep true to their own sense of style. Merle Carlet, a Berlin-based creative director, bought a set of straight-leg black Pleats pants in her first trimester, then, a wider set of beige pants, and a Homme Plissé T-shirt. She wears her pants and the Madame T with chunky jewelry from Uncommon Matters, The Row sock slippers, and a Bottega Veneta Jodie bag.
“An outfit you put together yesterday may not fit tomorrow,” Carlet says. “I’m not able to wear anything like the usual pregnancy looks: I’m not a dress girl, no floral prints…I didn’t want to buy things that I will only wear during pregnancy.”
Pleats Please stretches itself to all of a pregnant person’s priorities. It is soft and comfortable, machine washable and easy-drying, and grows with the belly.
London-based editor and writer Liv Siddall wore a coral sleeveless and high-necked dress to a wedding when she was seven months pregnant and “absolutely enormous.” “There are so many aspects of the world that enrage and frustrate you during pregnancy, but the lack of chic or interesting maternitywear available is extraordinary,” she says. “The fun thing about this is that you have to really use your brain as to what will work on your growing shape.”
“Often, people just look at your belly and see you as a pregnant woman, rather than a woman in your own right,” says Siddall. “This Issey dress was like a big orange beacon that proclaimed to the world that I had a personality, an independent person with interests and style, as opposed to just an anonymous vessel carrying a baby.”
“I attended an Amina Muaddi store opening during my pregnancy and wore my A.M. x AWGE heels, which have an embellished curb chain ankle strap. I wanted to make sure this was going to be shown, so I tucked the Pleats Pleases trousers into the chain which I think made the outfit!” says Fáizah Akindojuromi, a London-based creative director and producer. “I love that the lines of the pleats really emphasize the curves of the bump.”
Morwenna Ferrier, fashion and lifestyle editor at The Guardian, bought a charcoal sleeveless tabard on eBay while pregnant. “Not everyone looks the same when they’re pregnant…you might stay skinny and spill out sideways,” says Ferrier. “I carried it all in front. While this meant bodycon and ruching worked, I liked that it sort of sat between the two things; it moved as my body changed, slipped over my head without zips or buttons, and had nothing remotely approximating a waist.”
“I had an idea that I’d walk around with my belly out,” says Ferrier. “My skin stretched in quite a frightening way, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that on show. People will try to touch you. The tabard was a sort of halfway house. In Issey, the bump is on show, almost served up through the fabric, but protected.” She still wears the slightly stretched tabard today. “In some ways, it reminds me that I sort of preferred my body when I was pregnant.”
“When summer arrived and my regular clothes stopped fitting, I added some more colorful Pleats Please dresses and tops,” says Amsterdam-based editor Keesje Heldoorn. For many, like Heldoorn, these pieces are the beginning of an archive. “To this day, each item is worn regularly. I’m pretty sure they will be as relevant by the time my daughter starts stealing them from my closet.”
Tessa Vermeulen, founder and creative director of London-based, silks-focused label Hai, had her son in March—most of her pregnancy was in the cold months, so she would layer her pleats with cashmere tights and oversize knits. “As much as I dreamed of having a few Rihanna-style pregnancy moments, the reality was that I run cold, and winter pregnancy called for warmth and ease. Issey gave me both,” she says.
“Pregnancy itself wasn’t my most stylish chapter,” Vermeulen adds. “We were renovating our house, moving from sublet to sublet, and I was living out of one suitcase for the final five months. My Issey pieces were in constant rotation—a uniform. At four months postpartum, my body is finally starting to feel like mine again, and my love of getting dressed is back…just with a few milk stains thrown in.”
For New York–based author, creative director, and Morning founder Lydia Pang, Pleats Please trousers were perfect for her second trimester, “when you start getting that little bump and you wanna be comfortable, but also celebrate your belly growing,” she says. Recently, she paired a high-neck top with navy silk Cawley bloomers that sat low, two enveloping fabrics in rich textures that framed the bump. “I usually just wear them with a vest, little Margiela loafers, and a chain. They do all the talking I think. [It’s] so rare for a piece of clothing to be stylish, but also deeply comfortable.”
Holly Chaves, a wine and cheesemonger, bought her Pleats Please pieces from Vinted. After pregnancy, her trousers persisted for work and the soft play area—“you go down the slide very quickly,” she affirms. Her sleeveless dress gets the most wear, and was a go-to for visits to the kids pool last week because of its quick drying fabric.
Jennifer Valentin-Kimbugwe, a London-based model and longtime, avid wearer of Issey, sees it as such: “It’s fashion that evolves with me, not against me.”
Pleats Please has seen her through into her breastfeeding journey. “Breastfeeding can be such a vulnerable moment, but wearing Issey Miyake makes me feel beautiful, composed, and powerful,” she says. “There’s a quiet confidence in being able to nourish my son while dressed in something that feels like it was made with mothers in mind.”
