How Barbara Palvin Upended Every Expectation About Pregnancy Style, One Cannes Red Carpet at a Time

On a recent afternoon this May, model Barbara Palvin found herself in a situation moms-to-be know all too well. She'd had a special event outfit all picked out, one she felt confident wearing in her pregnancy. But at the rate her body was changing along with her growing baby, the maternity clothes weren't quite landing night-of like they had just days before. Only, Palvin wasn't getting dressed for just another date night or work event. She was contending with a custom Ella Mae gown styled by Marc Eram for the Cannes Film Festival.

In fittings, "It fit like glove and it was perfect," Eram tells Marie Claire from Los Angeles, where he's just landed after the flight home from the Nice Airport. "Then when it came to putting it on the day of the carpet, after she'd done glam, it was like a little boxier in the corset and the bodice of it." There wasn't cause for concern, though. Eram is an expert who's worked with Palvin for years; they're as much friends as they are a stylist-client duo. If he could dress her for dozens of premieres and parties pre-baby, he could ensure their tribute to Eileithyia, goddess of birth, worked. And as the photos of Palvin ascending the theater steps at Cannes show, her hair in ethereal waves and her dress's caped sleeves fluttering in the wind just behind her baby bump, he did.

The Grecian goddess homage marked Palvin's third Cannes red-carpet premiere this week, one in which she made headlines by revealing her pregnancy on her first step-and-repeat. With each event she attended afterward, she pulled off the tricky balance of exploring her personal style while accommodating her pregnancy body—all in the likes of Miu Miu, Willy Chavarria, Karl Lagerfeld, and more. "As big a moment as it is to announce that she's pregnant, she also just wanted it to be a big moment fashion-wise for her," Eram says, "which I think that we achieved."

Some stylists set a narrow agenda when their client is packing for the Croisette. Maybe they'll only wear vintage sourced from French designers (like Bella Hadid), or they'll commit to a single shade (little white dresses are a staple). Eram took a more personalized approach to crafting Barbara Pavlin's pregnancy reveal outfits.

Initial conversations began when she already knew she was expecting, and she had one request: Let's not go with typical mom-to-be muumuus or matronly prints, please. "She really wanted to make sure that we were still staying true to her and making choices that felt different from the usual," Eram says, "even though that becomes a harder thing when you're pregnant, because you can sometimes be limited in what the options are."

But Palvin and Eram weren't quite as constrained as the average person trying to figure out the wild world of maternity wear—bespoke fashion is a perk of the Hollywood experience, after all. Their red-carpet run started with a baby-blue Miu Miu gown, which Palvin would wear to walk the Histoires Parallèles (Parallel Tales) premiere alongside her husband, actor Dylan Sprouse.

As frequent guests in the French label's Paris Fashion Week front rows, the duo had plenty of access to the Miu Miu archive for inspiration. As Eram refined his vision for the final look, including flutter sleeves and a fluffy, feather train, he felt it should capture Barbara's style ethos first and her pregnancy second. In other words, "We want it to be her own and feel like ethereal, yet fashion forward, yet accommodating to what she's going through," Eram explains. "We didn't just want it to be silhouettes where you're just like, 'Oh well, you're pregnant, you have to wear this."

Eram wasn't going to limit how Palvin showed up with her special Cannes plus-one in any regard: not with a narrow color palette, not with a single designer, and definitely not with one genre of red carpet silhouette. For the second premiere, Eram wondered, "How do we fully do a 360, and do something completely different that still feels very you?" The answer was a Karl Lagerfeld tuxedo shirt tucked into a floor-length skirt, a combination that felt plucked straight from Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy's closet.

"Generally with her style we love to pull a reference from something that's a little '90s— something that's more streamlined," Eram says. "It felt like such a cool mix: a little bit masculine, but still feminine and still highlighting her bump."

The official Cannes red carpet only covered half of Palvin's pregnancy-reveal wardrobe. Her trips to and from the famed Hôtel Martinez also warranted their own carefully-chosen selects, from a flowing Roberto Cavalli shirt set to a plaid button down offset by Jimmy Choo jelly sandals. While the daytime Croisette outfits leaned way more casual than, say, a premiere night ballgown, Eram says the overall goal was still the same.

"We wanted to remain true to the side of her that loves something that's effortless and chic—we made sure we had that balance of these really impactful, bright moments and then stuff that felt subtle and still everyday Barbara style."

Photos of Palvin ascending the Cannes theater stairs make every outfit look effortless, but there were several fittings and a lot of heart-to-heart conversations behind each one. Even someone with years of Victoria's Secret runways and red carpets under her belt could feel overwhelmed by the changes to her body and style during pregnancy. "She was like, I always trust you, but right now I'm putting all my faith in you for this," Eram reflects.

Dressing her at a vulnerable time, and in clothes that made her feel strong and confident through it, deepened their relationship, Eram says. "I think it took our relationship as stylist and client and friends to the next level of understanding what her style is and the direction, and making sure that she felt good. That was also my goal at the end of the day: Yes, the look is amazing, but does she feel good?"

There are even more pregnancy looks where Palvin's Cannes wardrobe came from, including ten outfits Eram selected and didn't ultimately send onto the carpet. ("I like to over prepare," he explains.)

He couldn't say when the model's next slate of back-to-back maternity outfits will hit the red carpet circuit. And as for online rumors that blue Miu Miu means a boy, pink Willy Chavarria hints at a girl, or both are a sign she's carrying twins? Eram calls the speculation "funny" and gently guides the conversation back to what's immediately clear: that Palvin's self-expression wasn't limited by her pregnancy.

"We just wanted it to feel as fashion as possible," he says, "and for the world to see that just because someone's pregnant, it doesn't mean that they're not going to be able to find things that work for them or have those moments where they're like, wow, I still feel really stylish in this look."