Rihanna has told the BBC she has enjoyed rewriting the rules for fashion as a mum, saying she “refused to buy maternity clothes”.
“I approached it like everything I do with fashion,” she said. “I just want to do things my way and always switch it up and put my own twist on it.
“I was like, whatever fits is going to work, and that made me challenge myself to get clever with style,” she added.
She was speaking at the launch party of her latest collaboration with Puma.
The multi-Grammy Award winner has two sons with rapper A$AP Rocky – RZA Athelaston Mayers, born in 2022, and Riot Rose Mayers, born in 2023.
Asked about her style in the last couple of years, she said: “With the first pregnancy I was able to wear heels all the way through, but with the second one, I had a toddler, a belly, it was winter and I had a baby bag, so I was like, ‘Heels? Maybe not’. So that’s why I got creative with my style.
“Then I got too comfortable after I had my second kid and I was in robes, pyjamas and sweats. Now I’m playing [live] again and enjoying my clothes.”
The singer added that only in recent weeks has she had “a rediscovery” of herself, after focusing on raising two children under two.
“Being able to allow myself mentally to have that space to approach my closet and create stuff – after you have kids, it does something for you as a woman and as a mum, and that’s really important,” she said.
She has been praised for changing the narrative around maternity style, with Vanessa Friedman writing in The New York Times that she “has a history of consciously using her own physicality and profile to force reconsideration of old prejudices and social conventions about female agency and beauty”.
Many of her looks, both during and post pregnancy, have given a nod to high fashion, but have been described in Glamour as “accessible” due to the use of everyday outfits.
“She is pushing the concept of what a pregnancy wardrobe can include,” The Bump’s Ashlee Neuman told the Guardian in 2022.
“Up until now, crop tops, low rise jeans and sheer fabrics haven’t been a mainstay of maternity wear.”
Others, including Refinery 29’s Venesa Coger, have said Rihanna has made “it OK to still enjoy the fashion styles you loved wearing prior to becoming pregnant”.
The 36-year-old star has stepped away from music in recent years, last releasing an album in 2016.
It hasn’t stopped her from becoming a self-made billionaire, and she is estimated to be worth $1.4bn (£1.12bn), according to Forbes.
Her income has mostly come from her make-up and skincare brand Fenty Beauty and lingerie brand Savage x Fenty.
She has appeared on a few tracks in recent years, including Lift Me Up in 2022, the lead single for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Soundtrack.
Her 2023 Super Bowl half-time show marked her first live performance in over five years, seen by more than 121 million viewers, making it the event’s most-watched half-time show in history.
