You’re pregnant! Congrats—now you’re trying to figure out how to deal with your closet for the next nine months. Of course, maternity style is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. There are plenty of ways to approach it (whether that means sourcing an entirely new wardrobe or cobbling together getups from what you already own), but more than anything, there’s an opportunity to break all sorts of supposed fashion “rules” (though you obviously can—and should—be eschewing old school fashion edicts whenever, with or without a baby on the way). Who better to supply some candid and

truly helpful advice for dressing for your pregnancy than the incredibly stylish fashion editors and bloggers who have done so already?

For some of those women, the realities of maternity style were faraway from the fantasies of dressing while expecting: “I always envisioned that once I was pregnant, I’d wear cute tight dresses,

heels, bikinis that embraced the bump—the way celebrities dress once they are pregnant,” recalls Victoria Sanchez Lincoln, fashionmonger , stylist, and former fashion director at Real Simple. “But when I was pregnant, I had a huge belly, swollen feet, and ankles—just overall everything was enlarged, and not in a good way...that’s when I realized I needed to dress my new body shape.” For others, the item that ends up being on constant loop during those nine months was a total wild card: “My Alaïa leggings I bought at a vintage shop were my essential during pregnancy,” says Karla Martinez de Salas, editor-in-chief of Vogue Mexico and Vogue Latin America .

We asked 11 of our favorites about their essential purchases (and the utterly unnecessary ones), the layering tricks and unexpected hero pieces they relied on while expecting, and the personal style revelations they had that have impacted how they get dressed today. Ahead, read their takeaways on the deeply personal, sometimes arduous, occasionally pleasurable challenge that's maternity fashion.