"The Maternity Outfit" by Eleanor Chalmers (The Delineator, July 1909)

 

"Last year coming home from Europe," writes Mrs Chalmers,

I crossed on the steamer with an attractive young married woman... a lithe, active figure in a well-cut, well-tailored suit in the daytime and radiantly lovely at night in a black chiffon Empire dress that she had had made in London. 

You can imagine my surprise when I met her, several months later, driving in Central Park with a most bewitching baby.  We had sat at the same table, lain in parallel deck chairs and had really seen quite a bit of each other on the way home, and yet, as I told her, I had never suspected it for a moment.

Once upon a time, "baby bumps" were not for showing off, and maternity clothes not only had to allow for expansion, but also conceal the wearer's condition.  The moderns of 1909 thought this was an improvement on the old way of doing things:

The new maternity garments conceal the figure perfectly and allow women to go about in a sane, natural manner.  The old morbid, recluse-like banishment that women used to accept as their common lot is rapidly becoming one of the antiquated ideas that belong to a less enlightened era.

(Imagine how much time Victorian mothers of large families must have spent hiding themselves from public view!

 

Ideally, maternity wear should be healthy as well as concealing.  Mrs Chalmers continues by discussing some of the latest ideas (1909 style) for "healthful" garments and lifestyles:

The first thing that a woman will need is an every-day out-of-doors dress or suit of some kind, for it is most important that she should keep in the open air at least a couple of hours a day.  Most women use a skirt and shirt-waists—a combination that I do not altogether favor, for, as I said before, a complete dress with the weight resting on the shoulders is a far more healthful sort a of garment than one in which the skirt is supported at the waistline.

"I do not advise," the author continues

a skirt of one color, and waists of another.  It draws a sharper line of division in the figure than a one-color scheme carried out as shown in the first illustration...

The waist has a little fulness at the waistline in the back, which should be drawn into a belt tape that you can fasten around the waist, holding the fulness at the front.  The belt tape is much better than the belt stay, which would have to be altered from time to time.

(The illustration above shows the belt tape.) 

  

For a shirt-waist suit the skirt should be cut in the round length—never shorter, unless you are going to use it merely for rainy days.  A short skirt is awkward in a maternity dress and makes a woman look worse than is at all necessary.   The method of making the skirt is the same as for any gored skirt pattern except that there is no need to fit it to the figure over the hips and at the waist.  It is mounted on an elastic band run into a casing—a sort of self-adjustable affair that takes care of itself quite nicely.

Next comes a suit that is really a maternity dress:

While the shirt-waist suit is very neat and practical I lean toward the maternity dress shown in the second illustration.  At first glance it looks quite a little like a semi-tailored suit.  In reality it is a dress consisting of a seven-gored, high-waistline skirt mounted on a French waist-lining, and a coatee that can be of the same material as the skirt if one uses it for an every-day sort of dress, or of dried lace, net soutached tulle, etc., if one wants it for reception or formal occasions.

It's good to know that pregnant Edwardian women (unlike their Victorian counterparts) were allowed to have a social life.  

A proper maternity outfit, however, did not end with a shirt-waist suit and a maternity dress.  For cooler days:

... one should have some sort of a long coat or wrap for traveling, driving, etc.  I should advise a straight slightly fitted coat made with generous overlapping double-breasted fronts.  (Illustration no. 3)  It is an easy thing to move the buttons, and the coat will always look well.  It is a very simple coat to make, for it is very slightly fitted and extremely severe in cut...

The little house dress in Illustration 4 is a pretty thing and can be put to any number of uses.  Décolleté and with short sleeves, it makes a graceful sort of dress for home dinners in any soft material... High necked it makes an excellent day dress... The skirt, I think, for this particular kind of an outfit, is better gathered, as shown in the illustration, than tucked, though it can be used either way.  The gathers are softer and more disguising.

 

 

Illustrations 5 and 6 are excellent types of wrappers and matinées for maternity needs.  The empire styles are far and away one's wisest choice wherever it is possible to use them, not only because they are pretty and protecting to the figure, but because the weight of the garment falls on the shoulders.  I would make the belt of the dressing-sack about six inches longer than the usual size and draw it in on a ribbon.

If you want to read the article in its entirety, the full magazine is available online at the Hathi Trust.