Style Counsel: Maura Conine

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This personal stylist manager for Nordstrom thinks about fashion for a living, matching store experts with customers in need of shopping guidance. But dressing for pregnancy threw even this seasoned pro for a loop.

A baby, right?! When are you due? July 28.

Do you have a name picked out? We do not. We have two names: I like one, my husband likes the other. He keeps just referring to the baby by the name he likes.

How did you approach the necessary wardrobe changes? It became apparent to me that it is way more flattering to wear a fitted style, and to kind of show off the baby bump, to just kind of own it. I learned that I didn’t have to invest in a ton of maternity things—just mostly jeans and pants. I was able to continue to use my apparel like T-shirts that had stretch or ruching that I could grow into.

What had to go? I can’t wear really high heels as much as I want to. Especially for my job. When you get to a certain point in a pregnancy, dressing comfortably becomes a little bit more important. Before the pregnancy, I would suffer through pain to get the style across.

Like these shoes? These are actually pretty comfortable. But they’re not work shoes…they’re definitely play shoes. I can wear them about four to five hours, and then they have to come off.

As an industry insider, what’s your take on the dreaded maternity section? Maternity clothes have come such a long way in the last 10 years. It’s not your mom’s maternity. Back in the day, they were wearing only trapeze-style dresses, empire-waist dresses, those really exaggerated full dresses and shirts. Now you have stores like Topshop, H&M, Nordstrom. I’m still wearing a lot of the clothes that I owned. I still feel like me.

Photograph by Annette Navarro

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