Following trend set by Kareena Kapoor, this 8-month pregnant model flaunts baby bump at New York Fashion Week

Eight months pregnant artist, Maia Ruth just made baby bumps on display very cool at the NWFW. How's that for body diversity?

Shreya Biswas
Sep 12, 2017

New York Fashion Week is in full swing. On Saturday, Maia Ruth Lee stole the show by walking the ramp for designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta for their Spring 2018 show. Sashaying down the runway, Lee proudly flaunted her eight-month baby bump which caused quite a stir. The image of a heavily pregnant woman walking down the ramp is a rare sight. She was wearing a pale lavender snap button cardigan dress which was partially unbuttoned in the middle to display her baby bump.

Maia is due next month and a photograph of her was posted by Vogue Runway’s director Nicole Phelps who captioned it, “I’ve been going to fashion shows for 21 years and I’ve seen a pregnant model on the runway exactly one other time. Something to think about.” After this, it quickly grabbed the attention of all the followers of Phelps who joined in to praise the progressive step taken in the fashion industry.

Maia Ruth Lee walking for Eckhaus Latta at New York Fashion Week
(Photo: Instagram//@nicolephelps @maia_ruth_lee)

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According to co-founder of Eckhaus Latta, Zoe Latta, diversity and unconventional casting has always been their thing. She says in an interview with Vogue, “To have a bunch of one gender that’s the same race and height and size and fit, wearing similar clothes and makeup—I don’t think we were ever interested in that.” “It’s really beautiful just to see different stages of life,” Mike Eckhaus said, “It’s fashion, but there’s a sense of how it moves with you in all these different ways.” Apart from Maia, there were models from different spheres of life.

While people’s astonishment at seeing a pregnant body doing a catwalk is obvious, we saw it here in India a year ago. Model Carol Gracias had walked the ramp for Lakme Fashion Week in a gorgeous saree. This act was then followed up by Kareena Kapoor Khan, as she walked for Anita Dongre and Sabyasachi Mukherjee. This changing scenario in the fashion industry is extremely body positive and these models/soon-to-be mums just showed us why baby bumps might as well belong on the runways too.