Dressing up during a pregnancy is not easy—just ask Serena Williams.  It’s been nearly two years since the tennis star gave birth to her first child, daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian, with husband Alexis Ohanian at the start of September 2017. Leading up to the little one’s arrival, wardrobe was important to Williams.

“The thing is, during my pregnancy, I always made sure I was dressed up, or I wore heels and it would kill me,” she recalled to Essence as the September issue cover star. “But I would just wear the heels and then I would take them off at the restaurant or wherever we would go. Then I’d put them back on. I had to be fabulous.”

The star further remembered, “There’s even a picture of the day before I had the baby. We went out to eat and I had on my blue outfit and I was like, I’m going to try to be stylish this whole pregnancy.”

However, with a brand new baby in her life, things inevitably changed—including the clothes. “I tried, but afterward, it was a little bit of a letdown, definitely more so than during,” she told Essence. “We deserve a letdown, but we also deserve an upgrade.”

Just after Olympia turns 2 years old, Williams will give fans the opportunity to upgrade their fall wardrobe with a New York Fashion Week presentation for her eponymous line, S by Serena. On Sept. 10, customers will be able to buy anything on her runway. And, just like herself, Williams is dressing women for everything in their busy days.

“As far as the clothing, we really wanted to have fun and be confident. It’s kind of like all the aspects of my life. But not just my life, most women’s lives,” she told the magazine. “We have a job, or we have somewhere to go for an event, or we have something more serious that we wanted to dress down for, or we might want to go out with our friends and relax, or we may just be walking around the house as a mom. So when we were designing the collection, we wanted to speak to every aspect of that woman.”

Original article: https://www.eonline.com/news/1063343/serena-williams-reflects-on-her-fabulous-pregnancy-fashion-but-it-wasn-t-easy