Pregnancy and new motherhood are times when nature’s benefits can feel all-the-more potent.
When pregnant members of the Berghaus team found themselves cut off from doing the activities they loved due to a lack of pregnancy-friendly performance wear, we knew we had to do something about it.
This is Demi. She is our Product Merchandiser here at Berghaus. In a nutshell, her role is all about planning our product ranges and making sure we’re addressing any problems our customers have. She briefs the design and development teams on what’s needed for the season and then lets them work their magic.
When she was four months pregnant, she went on a trip to Iceland where it was -5 degrees. Her main concern was staying warm, but that turned out to be harder than she’d imagined.
Her down jacket didn’t fit her anymore (even though she only had the beginnings of a bump). She couldn’t layer up as the layers didn’t fit her on their own (and definitely not on top of each other). Her jacket kept rising up leaving the bottom of her bump exposed which was, in her words, “uncomfortable, unflattering and as you might imagine, cold”. She had to use a scarf and her partner’s XL jumper to create a makeshift bump warmer to keep the baby nice and toasty in the freezing conditions.
It was a problem which actually got worse throughout pregnancy as Demi kept trying to do the active things she loved, like hiking and cycling. Even at the end of her pregnancy in the summertime, she was boiling hot and sweating through her high street T-shirts just going for a walk.
When Demi came back from maternity leave in 2019 and shared this with us, we knew it was a problem that must affect thousands of pregnant women who just wanted to be able to enjoy nature in something more comfortable than thin leggings or a pair of maternity jeans.
Demi and her product team began to gather broader market insight and found loads of women online talking about the exact same problems, from the active hikers and outdoor lovers, right through to women who just wanted to stay dry and comfortable walking their dog around the park. She also uncovered how many women were calling out outdoor brands for not including them - most of them had resorted to wearing high street products that didn’t work very well, or buying a men's extra large but feeling rubbish wearing it.
By December 2020, Demi and the team had explored product development and had briefed in the items they wanted to see in the range that were currently missing from maternity ranges elsewhere. They tried the samples & prototypes on at least 6-8 women, using a mixture of pregnant models and also Berghaus staff who just so happened to be pregnant at the time. This was especially useful as they could more closely monitor how their bodies were changing in real-time with greater consistency, and tweak the designs accordingly for max comfort and functionality at the different stages.
At first, we did have a few teething issues. “We had a big task to get the fit right. But fortunately, the project was driven by members of our team who are the mums to be or have been, and have been able to share our needs and ideas throughout the project.”
The team also knew that the stages after pregnancy needed to be accounted for in the design process, and were determined to create products that could still be used after pregnancy to keep the items super sustainable. Buying decent activewear can be an investment, and one of the pain points with women in our research was that buying items just to wear during pregnancy didn’t seem worth it (especially when there’s a whole list of things to buy for the soon-to-be baby). That’s why it was so important that our range could be used during pregnancy and beyond, with features that made all the garments fully adjustable so they could be kept in women’s wardrobes for a lifetime.
One of Demi’s key insights was that while pregnancy might seem like a relatively short window in your life, the changes your body go through don’t end after nine months:
“It wasn’t just about during pregnancy, we needed to make sure that post-partum (when the body isn’t back to normal and likely to be going through breast feeding) and way after the product was still desirable to wear. So at every stage, we’ve been testing it on pregnant models and non-pregnant models until we cracked it.”
And crack it they did. After testing and re-testing around 5-6 prototypes, making hundreds of adjustments and getting everything spot on for every size, our maternity range was born.
We are very proud that our maternity range is finally here, complete with jackets with innovative removable panels, pants with 4-way stretch bump bands, a tee with an easy access quarter zip and side ventilation for feeding on-the-go, plus loads of other features that mean pregnant women can experience the great outdoors while staying dry and comfortable at any bump-size (and beyond).
Have a look at Demi and the team’s full maternity range here.
