Form, it`s in Paris, but you`ve got a few months to get there, it`s incroyable, it makes you feel so fashionable yet so feminine - even if a little broke.

I had two babies in quick succession five or so years ago, and spent the pregnant months desperate for even a glimmer of fashion to enter the maternity market. The offer was hopeless – all saggy, baggy, sacky shapes, with gruesome empire lines and god-awful Peter Pan collars. It seemed to me that things hadn’t progressed since the middle-Seventies. Yet, as soon as I’d given birth, the whole fashion world developed a sudden interest in maternity wear. There were cool jeans, funky tops, great swimwear, the lot. What’s more, the humble smock top became, for a couple of summers, the hot item in any woman’s wardrobe, pregnant or not. Thought the smock has now departed, there are still some fantastic bump-loving clothes out there on the high street (you’ll be changing shape and size on a weekly basis, so my feeling is that there’s little point in spending big bucks in designer stores, despite the pleasing feel of a Christian Dior label as it kisses the nape of your neck). H&M is great at this, and TopShop’s range is magnificent. My strong feeling is that, unless you have been gorging on buns and now look like a hippo, it’s well worth displaying your pregnant curves. The most beautiful mother-to-be I ever encountered was wearing a knitted tube dress, which in any other circumstance would have been hideous. But the sight of it cradling her perfect bump was beautiful, and the confidence she displayed truly affecting. If you can’t match this, at least be empowered by your new shape. You’ll hate it soon enough after little Olivia or Jack eventually arrives.