Sandy Liang loves a skimpy pregnancy outfit
The designer’s guide to dressing with a bump and with a kid.
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Under normal circumstances, I am a hardcore uniform dresser. For the better part of three years, the foundation of my look was a pair of wide-legged, snatched-waisted Lemaire trousers. (I have two pairs: chocolate brown and black, both pleasantly faded from constant use.) The rest of my outfit changed based on the weather and occasion, but even then, I was cycling through a small collection of tees, button-downs, and crewneck sweaters.
Pregnancy upended my status quo. Within weeks, my beloved Lemaires were squeezing my bloated gut like a boa constrictor, so I temporarily interred them in a storage box (sob) and started looking around for some fresh inspiration.
The New York designer Sandy Liang quickly became a north star. I’ve been a fan of her playful, cool collections for a long time — chartreuse pointe shoes! Ribbons and ruffles and bows! Scallion earrings! — but all of a sudden I was particularly interested in the selfies she had posted while pregnant with her son in 2024. A cheeky cropped shirt, big low-rise jeans, and a cardigan? Absolutely. A half-buttoned white shirt? Daring, but yes. A furry jacket over an exposed belly? I could try!!!
Because I am blessed/cursed with the journalist’s urge to report my way toward self-actualization, I asked Sandy to school me in the art of pregnancy and postpartum dressing. She was kind enough to oblige, and in April, right at the end of my second trimester, we got on Zoom for a conversation that was tactical, philosophical, funny, and vulnerable. Which, really, is the only way to talk about dressing through a major life and body change.
Above the paywall, Sandy and I discuss the sudden urge to wear skimpy outfits and the beauty of dangerously low-rise jeans. Below the paywall, we get into the pitfalls of comparing yourself to your postpartum peers, the healing power of bling, why she would structure her mat leave differently in the future, and where to find tiny, adorable Patagonia fleeces for your kid. Every last bit of it is instructive.
As always, this interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Before we started recording, you mentioned that you felt a lot of hope and excitement during pregnancy. I’d love to start there, because I’ve found this to be a rollercoaster of an experience. It’s sweet and wonderful, and then sometimes you’re crying for absolutely no reason.
You have to go with the flow. It’s so up and down. For me, at least, I leaned into knowing that it’s such a special time — in the grand scheme of things, you’re only pregnant for a short while. Your life will be so different after, and with your first child, you don’t even know what that will look like. Rather than trying to pre-plan too much, I think it’s about enjoying the fact that you have a round belly and can play around with what you want to wear.
Let’s dig into your pregnancy style. Early on, did you have a vision for how you wanted to dress, or were you feeling it out as you went along?
No mood board, no vision. I took it day by day. I didn’t really buy any pregnancy-specific clothes, other than breastfeeding bras, when I was planning ahead for the hospital. I kind of just sized up and wore a lot of my husband’s clothes. I flipped down the waistband of my jeans. I bought some pieces that were stretchy but not necessarily “pregnancy clothes.” And I was definitely more excited to wear tight things for the first time ever.
What were some examples of those bodycon1 items that you wouldn’t have worn previously?
I was wearing production samples from spring 2024, and in that collection I had this stretchy tank top with a straight neck. It was things like that. I also bought a sexy halter top that I ended up never wearing. I remember one time I wore a top to work, and it was so tight — my belly was growing and growing — that during a fitting I asked my tech person to cut a slit down the back so I could breathe.
It’s funny that you mentioned the sexy halter top, because this is the first time in decades that I’ve felt the impulse to wear a “going-out top.” I want to show off a little bit!
I really relate to that. Previously, I would never buy outfits for vacation — I would just wear clothes that were weather appropriate. But when I was going on my babymoon, I was like, what skimpy tank dresses can I wear? You know how there are certain things you can’t wear unless you’re really owning your body? For me, that meant a ribbed jersey tank dress. Just a column that shows off your body. I never felt comfortable with that before, but I was going to a beachy place and saw this long Rick Owens tank dress. And I was like, oh, yes!
To me, that’s the biggest potential upshot of pregnancy dressing, which is that it can open up new possibilities for how you want to present yourself to the world. Let’s shift to pants, though, because that was a real point of confusion for me. Initially I was like, do you wear the waistband under the bump? Over? And how do you figure out the right size? So, as a designer who actually understands clothing and bodies, what did you make of the trousers portion of your wardrobe?
I don’t know why, but I was very gung-ho about not buying pants that I couldn’t wear after I gave birth. In the beginning, I wore my normal-sized jeans but would flip the waistband down, or I would do that trick where you loop a hair elastic around the buttonhole [to allow the pants to stretch with you]. Once I got too big for that, I bought pants two sizes up, then two sizes beyond that. I went up a total of five sizes. But I only bought low-rise, baggy pants. I love oversized stuff anyway — I look the most like me when I’m wearing something oversized.
I feel the same way.
Totally. I did a lot of that in the first trimester when I wasn’t really showing and didn’t want to tell anybody, but also wasn’t really feeling like myself. I just wanted to be comfortable. So I did a lot of oversized shirts, which meant borrowing my husband’s clothes. He’s six-three and I’m five-one, so it was easy for everything to be baggy and comfortable.
From what I’ve gleaned, it seems like low-rise really is the correct solution if you want to wear non-pregnancy pants while pregnant. This is very counterintuitive for me, because I’ve been a high-rise person for the last 15 years. But you can’t really do high-rise with a pregnant belly. Either you’re wearing them with the fly open, or you’re wearing them under the bump and the crotch is at mid-thigh.
You can’t do it. And the low-rise is so comical — it’s a rise of, like, two inches. That button is two inches away from your vagina. It’s awesome. It’s hot.
Sandy, this is the thing that I could not understand when I was first contemplating how to wear pants while pregnant. I was thinking, okay, if you’re wearing your low-rise pants under the bump… is your crotch fully exposed?
100%! And you’re owning that because you have amazing, crazy things happening to your body, and it’s all temporary.
What advice do you have for pregnant people when it comes to getting dressed? This can be philosophical or tactical.
I’m going to lean into the philosophical. I would say that you should really try to embrace it. Love yourself to no end. Take a selfie every day. I journaled a lot, because I was so happy and excited. I’m a big scrapbooker and memory-hoarder, so for me it was about preserving the moment, because my life was about to change.
Wear whatever you want to wear. No regrets.
I’ve recently gotten interested in buying some Lacoste polo dresses off The RealReal for pregnancy, because that seems like a cute look that I never would have worn previously. I’m thinking a black short-sleeved polo dress. A little health goth.
I love that for you. Go off, Margot Tenenbaum.
Don’t forget the black eyeliner.
And a little barrette. On the tactical side, you mentioned that you did buy pregnancy-specific nursing bras. Which ones did you like?
I liked the Hatch crossover bra — none of that complicated stuff. You’ll probably need a pumping bra, too, but if you’re directly breastfeeding, which is what I did in the beginning, a crossover bra is great.
I’d love to move into your approach to getting dressed postpartum. How did things evolve once you’d delivered your son? What felt good to wear?
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