Rihanna's momentous nude pregnancy

Sympathies or not, impact.

Whatever your political, moral, stylistic principles, it is impossible for them to leave you indifferent.

The successive photos of Rihanna showing off her pregnant belly through transparencies or directly to the air, with intensity and fantasy in crescendo, inevitably position you.

Even if you think that it is in all her right to dress as she comes out of the neocortex.

Because all those photos of RiRi, taken by paparazzi (which is not to say that they are not very calculated) convey things.

Many.

And almost none have to do with fashion.

In the New York Times,

has written that "in the history of celebrity pregnancies, there has never been a display quite like it."

For its part, the British edition of Glamor considers that "Rihanna is single-handedly reinventing

Speaking to Yo Dona,

celebrity pregnancy specialist, vice chancellor of Drake University and author of the book 'Pregnant With the Stars'

explains, "For me, the visibility that Rihanna insists on in her pregnancy is really an insistence on her identity as an autonomous human being, who is also creating and sustaining a life. The public presentation of her pregnancy is in keeping with her presentations." public relations of celebrity and entrepreneurship, and continues to portray her as truly his, pregnant or not. This is a reaffirmation, for other pregnant women and people, that we continue to exist, separate from the role of mothers, and we are responsible to ourselves first and foremost." .

When pregnant women went inside a sack

It must be remembered that only 40 years ago, a past that is just around the corner, and not only in Spain, pregnant clothes compulsorily fulfilled two functions:

(no matter how naïve the idea was) and

Both purposes converged in garments of neutral or brown colors that fell over the bodies like stretcher table skirts and used to use baby collars and satin bows to emphasize that what was under there was not the body of a woman, but a carrycot. walking baby.

The reason for making the body 'disappear' has as little mystery as the fact that paintings of the pregnant Virgin Mary are scarce, as the very interesting exhibition

that took place at the Foundling Museum in London made clear: a pregnant woman is a woman who has had sexual intercourse and that, in the eyes of the 16th century bourgeoisie -and until very recently we have reproduced this cultural heritage- was inadmissible.

So, in order to square pregnancy in the rigid moral corset and the idealized image of motherhood, only one formula was found: to make the female body disappear, either by eliminating it from representations, or by hiding it under clothing that concealed the characteristic forms of the pregnant womb. .

Later would come the mythical cover of

with a bare stomach in 1991 (which would turn that type of pose into a stereotype, reproduced by celebrities and anonymous alike), which would open the door to a positive, aesthetic interpretation of the woman's body. pregnant.

But always with an idealized and intimate bias, the body removed from its social context, the body representing a unique moment where only the mother and son exist.

And without the 'threat' of eroticism hanging over him.

Upside down: everything idyllic, from the light to the expression of the face or the quality of the skin.

Even the recent photos of Sevdaliza pregnant continue to participate in this concept.

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Sexualized pregnancy?

Anathema!

These rules have not started to be broken until relatively recently.

In 2018,

was still accused of sexualizing her pregnancy, revealing that the prejudice persists and is in very good health: the body of the pregnant woman must 'behave' as an 'immaculate' body, it is a body that must be ' out of the game' sexually speaking, out of seduction.

That is what Rihanna has broken with and, as

writes in Slate, she has done it without giving it the slightest importance: without selling the photos, without posing in half-light, without giving herself more importance (or at least pretending to).

Because she doesn't need it.

Whatever she does, she already has the whole world's attention."

Rihanna at the Dior show at Paris fashion week, in an image that has already become iconic. GETTY IMAGES

Sociologist and fashion expert

believes that Rihanna is not only gorgeous, but that "she knows it and exploits it. And she knew she was going to make a lot of headlines."

From her point of view, the message that Rihanna transmits is "if I'm pregnant like that, you can be too, and even if you don't go through life in deshabillé like me, know that you're a beautiful creator goddess".

Pregnant or not pregnant;

but always rihanna

For her part, for Yo Dona's fashion editor,

what Rihanna has done is no more and no less than remain as she has always been (that is, assert herself, in line with the aforementioned Renée Ann Cramer: "Rihanna has always been bold and sexy. And her pregnancy was not going to change that What he has done has been to underline it based on transparencies, openings and short pieces that would normally only be seen in normative bodies with a flat abdomen, something that shocks the eyes accustomed to fashion designed to 'disguise'. What Rihanna has done during these months may be more important than it seems". She says it in terms of influence. Perhaps after this, adds María José Pérez, "some pregnant woman feels a little more authorized to do what she wants with his body without stopping to think about the look of others".Few titles are more accurate in this reflection than the one used by the New York Times for its report on the subject: "When the right to control your own body and the right to dress as you want come together."

Asap Rocky and Rihanna at the Gucci show at the latest Milan Fashion Week.GETTY IMAGES

The businesswoman, influencer and avant-garde expert

also joins those who see in the 'gesture' (which, as has been said, is not exactly a gesture, but rather a 'following one's path', which has even more weight and meaning) a liberating attitude.

"Maternity clothes have always hidden women, conveying that the pregnant body is not sexy, as if motherhood excluded everything else. That is why I find it super interesting what Rihanna is doing showing herself like this, the same thing that Sita Abellán is doing They both got pregnant at the same time and actually bought baby clothes at the same time and they both had some really cool looks."

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In this attitude towards pregnancy, Kornelski sees an attitude towards life.

"While society tells pregnant women to forget about themselves, their bodies, their beauty, to only think about the child they carry inside, these women say 'no', not only do I not hide, but I I show. That's why they have been heavily criticized. I think that in the end people are annoyed that something as beautiful as motherhood can become an instrument of female empowerment. And that's what needs to be broken."

And the best accomplice to do so has turned out to be fashion.

As Marta Kornelski reflects on the Instagram capture shown above, "You're seeing Sita at a festival, at Coachella, pregnant, dressed as she would dress if she weren't. She's following her style, not hiding under a nightgown. .

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