Have you heard of ELVI before? I hadn’t come across this clothing brand before earlier this year when they got in touch by email to introduce themselves, and I honestly fell in love with their ethos and styles straight away. Their goal is to create clothing that isn’t dictated by size – everything is available in a size 8 to 28, and made to fit everyone beautifully. They aim to include rather than exclude with their designs. You can read more about them here.
When they asked if I would like to try something from their occasion wear collection, I couldn’t say no! that they sent to me caught my eye straight away – the lightweight, floaty organza fabric layered over a body skimming slip is ethereal and pretty, just made for summer weddings, garden parties or even more casual days at the beach. The only problem I had? When the dress arrived just after mid-summer, I wasn’t feeling summery at all. In fact, as was a common problem for me this summer, I was feeling absolutely terrible with morning (ha! All day!) sickness and was just generally exhausted. I basically spent the whole summer inside wearing minimal but slouchy clothes. I basically tried on this dress, fell in love, then couldn’t manage to get back into it for the photos I longed to take.
See more of my maternity outfits here:
But no fear – autumn arrived, and with it my second trimester. And now I’m feeling SO much better. (I’m still wary of jinxing it, but even if so, I’ve had about 8 weeks of feeling healthy now and I’m LOVING it!). Autumn has me feeling so inspired this year, and I knew I could style this dress in an autumn way if I really tried. Okay, I’m not kidding anyone – my wardrobe is 90% autumn all year round anyway, filled with mustard, brown and red wine shades, so it wasn’t that much of a job! All this dress needed for an autumn update was a mustard cardigan and a pair of brown leather clogs.
Fortunately, we woke up to a lovely, very mild (verging on warm!) sunny day on Sunday, so I grabbed Ben and my camera and headed out to grab some maternity photos in this dress. I’ve already shared a few day-to-day maternity style posts here, but since these have mostly been jeans or casual clothes, I’ve been wanting to try to get something a bit more dressy and formal looking. The ELVI dress worked perfectly. And it was lucky we managed to get out and get these sorted now as I’d say I don’t have a whole lot of room left to grow in it! When I received it in July, it was a good fit in a size 10, but it’s definitely very tight around my (pretty expanded!) bust and doesn’t have a whole lot of room left at the waist. Fortunately the bump disappears under the folds of the floaty skirt which makes dresses like this ideal for early to mid-pregnancy – when you’re not necessarily wanting a bump on full show and want to be comfortable.
The mustard cardigan was a holiday purchase from GAP. There was an outlet in Lake Placid, where we stayed for the second half of our honeymoon, and it’s basically the only place we bought clothing on that trip. I was, again, a bit limited by the whole maternity thing, but a good cardigan is always going to be alright, as long as it doesn’t need doing up! Fortunately this one still has room to tie below the bust, even if it’s not designed for that purpose.
My Lotta from Stockholm clogs tend to get quite a bit of wear around this time of year but rarely make it to the blog for some reason! They’re good autumn basics for days you don’t want to wear boots, but the stiffness of the wooden sole means they’re not the best to walk around in all day. Perfect for daily office wear though, and for pairing with this outfit to get the perfect autumnal maternity shots!
And let’s just have a little round of applause for Ben for getting these photos too here – let’s just say that taking my outfit photos isn’t his favourite past time, but he scouted out the location, willingly got all the shots I wanted, even tweaked the camera settings to make sure they would turn out well. I’m so pleased with these photos and am so happy to have some “nice” maternity style photos at just over half way through my pregnancy (21 weeks here) to keep for future.
Outfit Details
Mustard cardigan: GAP Outlet | | Clogs: Lotta from Stockholm
This outfit is absolutely stunning. You look beautiful lovely. 😍❤️ Thanks for sharing ✨