The model who turned her maternity brand into a lifeline for isolated moms
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It’s not every day you hop on a call with a supermodel, but within minutes of talking to Nicole Trunfio, I felt like I was catching up with a friend who just happened to have walked runways for Chanel, or graced the cover of Elle. Maybe it’s because she’s juggling three kids (ages 10, 7, and 5) while building her brand Bumpsuit, or maybe it’s because she’s refreshingly honest about the total chaos of motherhood. Either way, our conversation felt less like an interview and more like the kind of real talk you have with your mom friends—the ones who don’t try and sugarcoat or pretend any of this is easy. (Also one who you’re certain would still look gorgeous in a potato sack, having brushed her hair with a pinecone, but I digress.)
That authenticity is exactly what’s made Bumpsuit the kind of brand that has Hailey Bieber organically featuring three different pieces in her pregnancy must-haves (without any paid partnership, mind you), while also creating the kind of community support that most of us are desperately craving.
The “Edward Scissorhands” problem
Nicole’s entrepreneurial awakening came courtesy of unsolicited maternity packages flooding her Texas mailbox during her first pregnancy. As a model, brands were eager to dress her bump, but each delivery was a fresh disappointment.
“I would open packages and be like, these are the jeans that I have to wear,” she remembers. “And it was like Edward Scissorhands took to the garment and added all these extra things and I was like, wow, I’m only gonna wear these for nine months. What a waste.”
We’ve all been there—staring at maternity clothes that just don’t feel like “us” while our regular wardrobe taunts us from the closet. Nicole wanted something different: pieces that could handle a workday, school drop-off, and dinner out without looking like she’d given up on life or style.
“I needed something that I could wear like to bed, roll out of bed, put a jacket on, go through my workday school, drop off school, pick up, go out to dinner if that’s what I needed,” she explains. “Come home, look professional, look chic, put together, but also be like very comfortable.”
So she created the original Bumpsuit—for herself, because she was tired of feeling like pregnancy meant fashion purgatory.
The philosophy: Stay yourself (Revolutionary, right?)
What makes Bumpsuit different isn’t just better fabric or cuter cuts (though both are true). It’s Nicole’s core belief that pregnancy shouldn’t require a personality transplant.
“You don’t have to change. You can stay you, you can buy something that you can wear for the rest of your life that will serve you through maternity and beyond,” she says. “I didn’t want to start dressing differently, you know, having different types of conversations, having different friend groups, having like, just changing my whole life. I wanted to remain the same.”
This philosophy shows up in every design decision. Her team fits every single product on both pregnant and non-pregnant models to ensure pieces work for life, not just nine months. “Even the Bumpsuit, you can wear non-pregnant. We have people wearing them all the time,” Nicole notes.
When celebrity endorsements actually mean something
The Hailey Bieber moment wasn’t just good PR—it was validation of Nicole’s approach. When someone who “probably gets sent everything under the sun” chooses to feature your brand three times organically, it says something.
“She’s probably been sent every single baby carrier. She’s probably tried every single pajama set,” Nicole observes. “For me, that was a really cool moment because it just goes to show that somebody that gets everything that’s not been hired by us to make a statement, is actually making a statement on our brand.”
It helps that Nicole’s background as a model (including her groundbreaking 2015 Elle Australia breastfeeding cover that somehow caused international controversy—because apparently feeding your baby is radical?) means she understands what actually looks good and feels comfortable.
The community that changes everything
But here’s where Bumpsuit gets really interesting: Nicole realized early on that moms need more than just better clothes. They need each other.
The revelation came through customer service emails during her early days running everything herself. Some return requests cited pregnancy loss as the reason, hitting close to home for Nicole, who’d experienced three miscarriages.
“When I experienced my first one, I was like, didn’t wanna tell anyone. I felt so ashamed. I felt like it was my fault. And then I told one person and they were like, oh yeah, I’ve had 10,” she shares. “It became so familiar and I was like, oh, maybe this is not a big deal. Because your aunties historically didn’t talk about it.”
This led to creating Bumpsuit walks in cities from Santa Monica to Austin—casual community meetups that have created lasting friendships. Nicole recently attended a birthday party where “six of the 12 moms that were there had all met her and each other on one of our Bumpsuit walks.”
“I get calls all the time saying, I met all of my friends on one of your Bumpsuit walks. And for me, that is what it’s all about,” she says.
The real talk about motherhood
Nicole’s honesty about the long game of motherhood feels like a breath of fresh air in a space often dominated by highlight reels. She’s candid about having”postpartum brain for five years” and the reality that “you don’t really realize how in the throes of it, you are until you get out of it.”
Now that her kids are older and more independent, she has perspective on those early years for moms who are struggling: “It’s actually really hard right now. It’s way harder than you think and it’s gonna get easier.”
Building something that matters
For entrepreneurs looking to disrupt tired industries, Nicole’s approach is instructive. She focuses on hiring “people with passion, and people that aren’t afraid to think outside the box” rather than industry insiders. “A lot of the people in my business are stay at home moms or people that have worked in different fields before, but I really, I can see that they really are passionate about what they do,” she explains.
In the case of Bumpsuit, the result is a brand that asks a simple but revolutionary question about every product: “Does this product make a mom’s life better, more functional, more beautiful, more desirable? Does it uplift her? Does it empower her? If the answer’s no, we don’t put it on the market.”
In a world where motherhood often feels like it requires us to minimize ourselves, shrink our ambitions, or accept lower standards, Nicole Trunfio’s built something different: a brand that says you can stay exactly who you are—while feeling at home in your clothing and surrounded by people who actually get it.
And in our current landscape of performative motherhood and an internet that pulses with judgement no matter what you do, that feels pretty revolutionary.
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