Maternity Wear’s New Sexy-Sophisticated
The birth of Fine4Nine
For Vanessa, style has always been a focus. With a natural talent for the aesthetics inherited from her art teacher father, the Chicago native acquired a degree in fashion design before moving to Naples, Florida where she began her career in the design department at Chicos. After several years in apparel, Vanessa decided to transfer her design skills to the world of interiors, taking advantage of the flourishing Florida building market and opening her own interior design firm.
With an eye for design that clients could spot from a mile away, Vanessa was soon flooded with projects. A busy business owner and mother, her on-the-go lifestyle didn’t stop while pregnant with her second child. Nor did her desire to be on-the-go in style.
Like many of today’s 30-something-year-old professionals who embark on motherhood, Vanessa was entering her new phase of life after years of fashion freedom. She had the freedom to choose from among designers that allowed her to express her unique style. She had the freedom to choose clothes that worked for her body. She had the freedom to look and feel chic and sexy.
With her pregnant, more voluptuous shape, Vanessa no longer seemed to have that freedom. When she shopped, she found plenty of comfy Ts, jeans and sweaters – plenty of plain, mainstream styles. In short, stores didn’t seem to carry the type of maternity wear Vanessa wanted to wear.
“My body changed, not my style,” says Vanessa. “I still wanted to feel sexy when I hit the town with girlfriends, dined with clients or spent time out with my husband. But I couldn’t find maternity clothes that I wanted to go out in – clothes that were fun and different…truly me.”
Vanessa soon gave up on maternity wear tops. Instead she bought non-maternity shirts and blouses in larger sizes. Of course they never quite fit right and the bigger her belly got, the less flattering the clothes. Out a pure fashion dilemma, she decided to design her own.
She began with a handful of dressy shirts she could wear with dress pants, or jeans and heels, to work and out in the evening. They were inspired by her favorite non-maternity looks, with longer cuts, stretchy fabrics and lower necklines that showed off her more ample, expectant bust line. And each had an element of dress – rows of beads that swept across the top, a butterfly print on the back, a rhinestone broach.
People took notice. Pregnant women and non pregnant women alike asked where she bought her maternity wear.
“I thought I was solving a personal style problem with my designs. I wasn’t thinking of launching a maternity line,” Vanessa says. “But I’ve never had so many compliments in my life. People were stopping me in stores to tell me that I was the best-dressed pregnant woman they’ve ever seen. Clients were asking where they could buy my clothes. There was a demand for it. I thought ‘designing is my passion – it’s what I love to do. Why wouldn’t I make this available to other women?’”
Vanessa launched her first line of maternity tops in the spring of 2009. Her collections are focused on smart, sexy-sophisticated pieces that are “Fine 4 Nine” – perfect for going out in style. With dressy embellishments, edgy motifs and sexy cut outs, the Fine 4 Nine collections include shirts, sweaters and dressed-up versions of casual thermal T’s. All pieces are designed to grow with a woman through her pregnancy and can even be worn with style postpartum.