Interview with Liz Lange

Liz Lange's a reader, a baker and a maternity-line maker! If you ever wondered how the busy businesswoman stole time with her kids or how she occupies her precious mom-me time, you're in luck! While chatting with the renowned designer about her latest line, she also dished on a few of her favorite things.

lilsugar: What is your favorite thing to do in your own time?

Liz Lange: Love to read – I’m always reading a book. From the classics to the lowest junk. I just died over American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. I can’t get that book out of my head. I’m almost in mourning over that book, so I can’t even start another book yet. I love to watch TV. I find that to be so relaxing at the end of the day at night after the kids have gone to bed. I watch everything, nothing is low enough for me – Ugly Betty, The Bachelor, Top Chef, American Idol. Some of the stuff we watch as a family – like American Idol, I watch with my children. Love, love, love all that stuff. One little luxury I try to do at home as often as I can is try to lock my door and try to take a bath. I feel like that really calms me. My kids won’t always let me do it, but when I can, I do it.

lilsugar: What is your favorite activity to do with your kids?

Liz Lange: On the weekends I like to cook and bake with the kids. I like food a lot and I love taking them to fun new restaurants that are appropriate.

lilsugar: What is your favorite parenting trick?

Liz Lange: One thing that I used to notice is that whenever my kids would see something either on TV or in a store that they wanted – they would start saying "Oh I want it, I want it, I want it." Instead of sort of saying "No" all the time, or negotiating with them, or sometimes, unfortunately, giving in, I just said, and I don’t know why but it ended up working so beautifully that I use it all the time now, I just said, "Oh, I’ll add it to the list." And I sort of have this list going now of things that they want, and they are totally comfortable with that, as long as it is on the list. There’s a feeling that eventually, whether it’s a birthday or it’ll be Hanukkah, or it will be something and it will be a reason for me to look at that list and get them some of the things that they wanted. I feel like that has avoided so many little meltdowns.

lilsugar: You know you're a mother when ____.

Liz Lange: You’re saying things that you never thought you would say – "Because I said so." "Because I’m the mother." You can’t even believe these words are coming out of your mouth.

lilsugar: Why didn’t anyone tell me ____?

Liz Lange: That the day you give birth, it feels like someone turns over one of those sand hourglasses and you feel like the time just starts to whip by. Like why was my childhood so long and theirs are so short. I feel like I was a kid forever and I feel like the years are whipping by.

lilsugar: Best trick your parents taught you?

Liz Lange: Sometimes I really admire, now looking back on it, how strict they were. My parents were strict and I feel like if I could be a little more strict with my children things would be a little easier, but that’s just not me.

lilsugar: Helicopter or free-range mom?

Liz Lange: Free range. At least I try to be!

If you missed any of the previous portions of our interview, they're available here.

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Maternity maven Liz Lange is just another mama juggling the demands of work and family on a daily basis. Mom to Gus, 10, and Alice, 8, (pictured with some friends), the wonder woman shared a few of her parenting secrets and how technology keeps her in the loop.

lilsugar: As a working mom, how do you balance the demands of career, family and friends?

Liz Lange: Whenever I’m asked about balance, I always want to burst into laughter because it never ever feels like balancing, it always feels like juggling. When I say juggling I’m always imagining too many balls in the air and one's always dropping. I am lucky because of the business I built. I have good help at the office and good help at home and I couldn’t do it without that. The way I do it is through a lot, a lot of careful planning. I’ve discovered that I literally only have two minutes to myself in the morning by the time I’m finished getting my children dressed, fed, dog possibly walked, etc. All of this has to happen in a short compressed space of time.

When I go to bed at night, I just spend three minutes glancing at my calendar for the next day and thinking in my mind about what I’m going to wear. And I try to keep my own wardrobe as edited as I think a woman’s maternity wardrobe [should be]. I try to practice what I preach that way. Even though I adore clothes, I’ve tried to keep it to just my favorite things and they work together in lots of different ways so I try to keep that pretty organized. I don’t have the luxury anymore, as a working mom, [to] have those mornings where by the end you have a pile of clothes on the floor. As a working mom, I have no room for that. I do the same thing with my make-up.

I try really hard to not always feel like I’m at the wrong place at the wrong time. Like I’m at the office, but I should be at home with the kids. Or that I’m home, but I have so much I need to get done at the office. I try to be present in both places and realize that I’m doing the best I can. Because I realize that I can’t do pick-up at school every single day, I try to do drop-off every morning on my way to my office. So that works for us.

To see what tech tool Liz uses to manage her day-to-day chaos and her views on parenting, read more

Liz Lange creates designer duds and affordable frocks for the masses. Whether you are pinching pennies or doling out dollars, any expectant mama can afford a piece of the fashion mogul's signature clothing. While chatting about the relaunch of her high end line, Liz dished on wardrobe staples as well as items worth a splurge!

lilsugar: What one item should a woman splurge on during her pregnancy?

Liz Lange: I love a great little dress, like a fun dress. I find to me that is like practically wearing a nightgown it is so comfortable, and yet you look so pulled together and so great and so sexy and so chic. There’s a dress on our line called the Tina dress in a palm-leaf coral print and I just think it is so universally flattering, so cute and so happy. I think there are really two ways to spend this Spring. Either you are going to spend on something so practical that it is just an investment piece that you are just going to turn to again and again and it is so versatile that you know you can just wear it to death. Or I think also it is something that is irresistible and that is going to make you feel so happy and so cute every time you put it on, even if it's not one of those things that you can wear every day of the week and I would put the Tina dress in that [category].

The Cathy Off-the-Shoulder Top you could wear with your white jeans or your dark jeans, you could wear it over your bathing suit this Summer. Depending on how tall you are, you could probably wear it as a little mini dress with a pair or slides or flip flops. I’m having that piece made for me. I love it. I just think you want there to be some pieces that are just special to you and make you happy. Don’t just treat your pregnancy wardrobe strictly like a commodity-driven thing. Have a little fun with it – even in this horrible economy. This is still such an exciting time for you and you should indulge yourself a little bit.

I do believe in mixing and matching and that is why I do the line with Target – because I am a huge believer. The other way to make your maternity wardrobe look super expensive is if you haven’t outgrown any of your accessories. I love costume, I collect costume jewelry, the chunkier the better. Load it up with bling – and it doesn’t have to be real. Just add some fun, and that’s stuff you already own. The same goes for your shoes, and scarves and your cardigans that maybe you can’t button any more that are fun pop colors and you can throw on unbuttoned and tie around your neck just to change things up.

lilsugar: Your line at Target revolutionized maternity-wear beyond the mumu and empire tops. Do you plan to make any changes to that line now?

Liz Lange: That line we’ve always tried to keep connected to our high-end line. I just love that line for Target. Beyond its price point, that I find to be genius, that line is a little bit more casual. We’ve always done a lot of denim on that line. [It] has been in place for six year and it works as it is. The only change is that as seasons change and inspirations change, I’m only one person so I’m always kind of inspired by similar things for both lines.

Check out Liz Lange's tips for maintaining work-life balance, and the joys of motherhood in tomorrow's post. You can see the entire interview by clicking here.

Building a new wardrobe that will only be worn for a few months is a daunting task. No one wants to spend a fortune on clothes that fit their pregnant figure, plus, given the state of the economy and the cost of newborn baby supplies, most household budgets don't allow for indulgent maternity shopping sprees.

Legendary maternity designer Liz Lange has dressed Hollywood stars like Bridget Moynahan, Julia Roberts, Cindy Crawford, and Kelly Ripa, on big budgets — but the pregnancy mogul also knows a thing or two about how regular women dress. She shared her thoughts about essential maternity purchases and her favorite pieces from her new collection.

lilsugar: Given the state of the economy, what key pieces should a woman invest in to get through her pregnancy?

Liz Lange: I think that there a few ways to look at that. First of all, eight key pieces are so lifestyle dependent, so it is always hard for me to say specifically for any woman what her key pieces should be. Maybe you work and then your key pieces are so different than a mom who spends her day at the playground chasing her 2-year old and she is also pregnant. So I think first of all, one has to look at themselves and look at their lifestyle and figure out what are those things that I go back to time and time again when I’m not pregnant. Those are the things that I need to invest in when I am pregnant because again, my body is changing but most likely my personal preferences and the way I like to dress and my needs are not really changing.

I think that today, jeans have become, not a trend, but a wardrobe staple. I would probably invest in a pair of those and if I could only invest in one, it would probably be a darker wash because I think they are more versatile. I believe in the little black dress, or perhaps it is not so little in this case! You can throw a cardigan or jacket over it and wear it to work. Pile on some chunky necklace and a little pair of kitten heels and wear it out at night. I believe in the pencil skirt, maybe depending on the season, a great t-shirt that’s fitted that you can wear as an underpinning under a suit jacket or sweater or cardigan, that you can also wear on its own with a pair of jeans on the weekend. I think most women want to have a great pair of black pants. I lived in those pants for like a year after my child was born.

To see the rest of what Liz said, read more

The woman who introduced the world to chic, form-fitting designs that celebrate the pregnant woman's bod is shaking things up again! Six years after introducing her maternity line to the masses through her collaboration with Target, Liz Lange is debuting more beautiful duds to flatter burgeoning bellies.

The Brown University grad and former Vogue editor, is relaunching her high-end line of maternity fashions after taking a year-long hiatus to reassess her business. The new Liz Lange Collection, which hits maternity shops and Nordstrom.com this week, includes dresses, silk blouses, skirts, pants, sweaters, jackets, and for the first time — denim!

The designer took some time to chat with us about her latest line, how to get the most bang for your buck with a maternity wardrobe and the ways she juggles work and motherhood.

lilsugar: Tell us about the new line. What are you most excited about?

Liz Lange: Even though I adore the collection that we do for Target, my roots and my beginnings are always in the high-end collection. That’s where I started it all and that’s where I got to work one-on-one with customers and with all of the celebrities I dressed over the years. We took two seasons off and so I'm just so excited to be relaunching in general. It’s really a continuation of everything we always did. We’ve always been about really, really wearable clothing even when we do trends, its always in a pretty and wearable way and not too out there. Really good quality stretch fabrics, clean silhouettes and classic American style, very uptown NYC, where I got my start.

To see the rest of Liz Lange's answer and her thoughts on the pregnant figure, read more