Why is maternity lingerie the way it is?

I started this brand from pure consumer frustration. Just a pent-up feeling that something was wrong with what was available.

But frustration only gets you so far. To actually build something better, I had to learn the history. What has maternity lingerie done for women? What has it failed to do?

Whatever I create has to lead back to the beginning. The why. If that's not clear enough, I go back and reassess.

Coming from media production and creative strategy, I worked with big brands. Saw how they communicate. Big budgets, big teams, big campaigns. But here's what I learned: you don't need to be big to make an impact. You just need to find your voice and your why.

So let's go back to the lingerie for mums. Why is it the way it is? And what's actually wrong with it?

An 1872 nursing chemise shows a movable flap that allows access for breastfeeding

The problem isn't new

I remember walking into high street brand stores in central London, pregnant, looking for a maternity bra. The answer was always the same: "Oh, we don't have the section here. You need to look online."

So I went online. Found something that looked fine. Ordered it. And my skin broke out in an allergic reaction – red spots, itching, discomfort on top of everything else my body was already doing.

That's not just inconvenient. That's a failure of design.

In 2016, a Chinese business reporter walked through department stores, supermarkets, and maternity shops looking for maternity underwear. She found almost nothing. One supermarket had a single pink option. "Just that one," the clerk told her. A designer she interviewed put it bluntly: "To some extent, the products in this category just aren't good enough."

Almost a decade later, the situation hasn't changed much.

Tracey Montford, creative director of Cake Lingerie, noted in 2014 that maternity bras "are not always given good exposure in lingerie stores. They can be sometimes found in the back of the store or hidden away." Her explanation: "they have been traditionally not very attractive or appealing."

That's the pattern. Not enough options. Hidden away. And when you find them, they're not appealing – or worse, they're actively uncomfortable.

 

The market's logic (and its limits)

Here's why the industry is slow to change. Maternity wear is seen as temporary. Nine months of pregnancy, maybe a year of breastfeeding. Consumers don't want to invest. Brands don't want to invest in something with limited use.

So the industry gives people what they expect: cheap, basic, forgettable. And sometimes – as I learned the hard way.

But here's what that logic misses. Pregnancy isn't just a season to "get through." It's a transformation. And the clothes you wear against your skin for 12-16 hours a day? They matter.

The gap that remains

Sometimes the design is good, but the materials aren't. Sometimes the fabric is soft, but the cut is frumpy. Rarely do you find both.

Claire Mercieca, founder of Embrace, understands this deeply. As someone who suffers from eczema, she had high standards for fabric – not just natural fibres, but breathability, heat regulation, moisture control. "These are the details that truly determine comfort and health," she says, "yet they're often overlooked."

When she couldn't find fabrics that met her standards, she spent a year custom-developing her own, made from fine plant-based yarns. "Cheap nursing bras are typically made of cheap synthetic fabrics such as polyester and nylon that are essentially plastic and toxic for our environment and human health," she notes. "The options out there were synthetic, bulky and uninspired. We knew mothers deserved better."

That's the standard we should expect. Not just for luxury, but for everyday.

The industry is slow-moving. But women aren't waiting.

So what's wrong?

Not that individual brands are bad. It's that the category has been treated as an afterthought. A niche. A temporary problem to solve with temporary solutions.

And when an industry treats something as temporary, it stops innovating. It stops asking what women actually need. It stops caring whether the fabric breathes, whether the fit adapts, whether the design makes you feel like yourself.

But that's changing. Motherhood is increasingly understood as a profound identity shift – not just a season to "get through." Women expect more. They want lingerie that honours the transformation, not just manages it.

Brands need to follow. The ones that don't will be left behind.

I walked into store after store in central London. I scrolled through page after page online. I got the rash. I got the frustration. And eventually, I started drawing.

That's the gap I'm trying to fill. Not by trashing anyone. By building something better.

Read more on THE ROBE MUM Substack 

References

Flywheel Strategy (2023) 'Claire Mercieca, Founder of Embrace'.

Fibre2Fashion (2014) ‘Talk with Tracey Montford, Creative Director, Cake Lingerie’, 27 June.