It's Hip to Be Pregnant With New Fashions.

It has been a long time coming, but pregnant women are finally getting a makeover.

Chic maternity clothing is becoming big business in cities like Los Angeles, with a large number of new high-end boutiques for pregnant women popping up around town and a group of local designers starting to specialize in stylish maternity wear.

"Pregnancy is really hip right now," said Peg Moline, editor in chief of Fit Pregnancy, a Weider Publications magazine based in Woodland Hills.

Barneys New York saw the trend coming last year. The high-end fashion specialty store started offering fresh designs by labels like Tocca and L'Atessa for pregnant women. The offerings run the gamut from conservative pieces like cashmere sweaters and capri pants to more daring articles like halter tops and even bikinis.

"We at Barneys felt that the needs of our typical Barneys customer -- that is, chic, urban women -- were not being met when she became pregnant," said Souri Kim, a Barneys spokesman.

Liz Lange, a former editor at Vogue, became a designer of maternity wear three years ago when she saw a trend coming. After opening a boutique in New York in 1997, she opened a second eponymous outlet in Beverly Hills two months ago after noticing that a good portion of her mail-order business was coming from Los Angeles.

Lange, along with Los Angeles-based designers like Trina Turk, Vivienne Tam and Anna Sui, whose maternity clothes can be found at Pea in the Pod in Beverly Hills, are designing for a more elite group of women who are used to shelling out big money for their clothing.

To serve them are a host of new upscale boutiques. Besides Lange's, there is Japanese Weekend, which made its debut in Newport Beach's Fashion Island last month, offering a more mid-ranged price of fashionable maternity clothing. Meanwhile, a Calabasas-based company called Naissance is set to open a boutique on trendy Melrose Avenue later this fall.

Out on the town

The Naissance collection, including snakeskin and leather pants, is the perfect match for either pregnant rock stars or regular pregnant women who still want a night out on the Hollywood club circuit. It is nothing like what pregnant women have been offered before, unless they could afford a personal designer.

One reason for the profile boost, experts say, is that numerous celebrities have recently been pregnant, including Madonna, Cindy Crawford and Catherine Zeta Jones. They have been highly visible during their pregnancies, thus helping to make the condition fashionable.

One had to look no further than the Sept. 10 Emmy Awards telecast for proof that pregnancy is in style. Clearly pregnant in body-hugging gowns were TV actress Jane Leeves of "Frasier" and Melissa Rivers of E! Networks.

"Celebrities have influence on fashion and culture, and they are out there at the Emmys (while pregnant) and on the pages of InStyle (magazine)," Moline said.

In addition, the timing is good. Los Angeles County health officials are reporting a baby boom this year. Births in the county have risen to 92,244 through August, from 82,718 reported for the same period last year.

While no one is exactly sure why births have skyrocketed, some suspect it may be due in part to couples swept up in "millennium fever." A feeling of wellbeing due to the strong economy hasn't hurt either.

Richard Giss, a retail analyst at Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles, sees the upscale maternity trend mirroring the overall luxury trend in retail. "Pregnant women can afford fashion right now," he said.

Looking good, always

Part of the maternity makeover could be due to women's changing role in society. More and more are balancing careers and motherhood at the same time, and those who have reached the higher ranks of corporations or own businesses themselves cannot afford to look bad during pregnancy.

"Woman are working until the day they deliver; they need to look professional," said Moline of Fit Pregnancy.

Clearly, not all of the legions of local women giving birth this fall can afford some of the pricey items at shops like Lange's, where evening dresses can run close to $500 -- but her boutique does offer more basic pieces that are much less expensive. "I am sensitive to the fact that (pregnancy) is short term," she said.

The modern pregnant woman has also changed the way she shops.

Part of Lange's strategy was to design the Beverly Hills store so it looks like any other high-end boutique in the area -- meaning no pink and blue or blocked letters that spell BABY, all of which has gone the way of the dinosaur. Shoppers instead will find sophisticated, stylish clothing organized neatly, along with bottles of spring water and chewable calcium tablets covered in chocolate.

The maternity section at Barneys is set up the same way. In many cases, the clothes are from the designers' regular collections, just re-cut to fit a pregnant woman's body.