Instagram screenshot @badaglriri
FASHION – It’s no secret. Rihanna is pregnant. Yes, the richest singer in the world, also at the head of a veritable empire of cosmetics and lingerie, is currently expecting her first child with her partner, rapper A$AP Rocky.
The news, revealed at the end of January through a photo shoot in the streets of New York, caused quite a stir. First, because the interpreter of Diamonds is one of the most followed stars in the world, but also because we are not used to seeing this kind of announcement.
We saw the two parents, arm in arm. Him, adorned with a blue denim jacket with a hood. She, in a long Chanel flashy pink down jacket, open at her plump belly. It’s unusual to see a pregnant woman dressed like that, especially when it’s snowing outside.
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Since then, Riri, whose taste for fashion and clothes we know, has multiplied his appearances in public. And this, in looks all more daring than the other. This was the case, at the beginning of February to go to dinner in Beverly Hills, in black leggings that she had matched with a lace-up neckline.
Good in her clothes, good in her skin
A few days later, she stepped back in a shimmering green halter top to walk the red carpet at an event in honor of her makeup brand Fenty Beauty.
That evening, she is questioned by a journalist about her style of dress. “I love not having to worry about covering my stomach,” Rihanna replies. It doesn’t matter if I think I’m chubby, I’m expecting a baby.” So yes, it’s not a party every day. Sometimes she just wants to hang out at home, she says.
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“And then, you put on clothes and it’s as if, because you’re well dressed, you feel good, continues the singer. I have often heard this refrain, but it is true. It can really get you off your couch and feel like a real bitch all over again.”
Rihanna has fun and does not stop there. Cap with camouflage patterns on the head, faded jeans at the bottom. As a top, for a new dinner in Santa Monica, she opts for an exposed diamond bra, a crop top tied at the chest and a long coat mixing denim and leopard.
Examples, there are others. They did not fail to react. For some, these tight and revealing outfits are light years away from the usual loose and covering maternity clothes. Rihanna would she blow a wind of freedom? Is she inviting women to embrace their bodies regardless of their life stage? This is what many welcome.
This is not the first celebrity to play with these codes. Completely naked, Demi Moore made the cover of the magazine Vanity Fair, in August 1991. It was a highlight. He helped her reclaim her body, she says. In 2017, a photo of Beyoncé, then pregnant with twins, showed her sitting cross-legged, covered with a veil, in front of an imposing floral creation. It was the most “liked” photo of the year.
“She plays with her belly”
Rihanna’s case is not new, but different, says Renée Greusard, journalist and author of the book Pregnant, anything is possible, an essay written in the first person in which she dissects the injunctions that weigh on pregnant women. The framework of his appearances is less formal. In addition, “she does not take a pose of Madonna, hands on her stomach all smiling, notes the journalist. On the contrary, she plays with her belly, she uses it as a support to have fun with her clothes.
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Rihanna’s clothes don’t hide her skin, they reveal certain parts of her body. They are sexy, like the ones she usually wears. Here, it may seem unexpected. “We expect a woman, whether she is a mother or about to have a child, that she is not ‘too’ desirable”, continues Renée Greusard.
The use of this superlative is not trivial because, as the specialist in the history of women’s bodies Emmanuelle Berthiaud explains to the journalist in her book, being sexy for a pregnant Western woman is not not really a possibility or an invitation, but rather an injunction.
This “sexualization” of the body of pregnant women appeared in the course of the 1980s. “The development of a specific fashion for pregnant women testifies to these new representations of pregnancy which must now be seen and no longer hidden”, observes the historian. She specifies: “Nothing is forbidden to pregnant women anymore, encouraged not to give up being attractive on the pretext that they are going to become mothers. The sexualization of the pregnant woman’s body publicly shows that motherhood and sexuality are no longer irreconcilable.
The “invisible corset”
Provided, however, to meet certain shackles, such as staying thin. “The silhouette of a pregnant woman who is valued is the one who, from behind, does not give the impression of being pregnant, comments Renée Greusard in turn. We are told that we can carry life, but that we must not forget to stay within the norms. This is what she calls the “invisible corset” of pregnant women.
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