Heidi Klum’s new maternity collections are officially for sale today, both at Pea in the Pod, which is stocking her new 17-piece “Lavish” collection here, and at Motherhood Maternity, which is stocking her 13-piece lower-priced “Loved” collection here. I like Heidi Klum, I think she is beautiful, I love that she has four very small children just like me, and I really love watching Project Runway. Is it awful that I am so under-impressed with her new collections?

Why do these celebrities continue to underwhelm us with their attempts at creating maternity collections? You would think that the likes of Nicole Richie and Heidi Klum have unlimited artistic resources at their disposal when it comes time to design maternity clothing but what we all finally end up with is…well, very boring and not at all special. Jessica Boulanger of More of Me Maternity is doing her own start-up maternity line out of Washington, DC without nearly the fanfare of Heidi and Nicole and I would so much rather be wearing her clothing than anything I’ve seen from Heidi today. And Julia Noik of Nuka Maternity has the most beautiful, luxurious line of maternity tops for sale, all designed by her own hand. I wish Good Morning America would give Jessica or Julia a chance to show their designs on air, rather than giving Heidi these 6 minutes she had on GMA to tell pregnant women why they should be wearing a maternity unitard. Yes, a unitard! Heidi’s “Lavish” collection includes a $95 maternity unitard that she told GMA she designed because she didn’t like having to wear a bra and underwear and have nothing in between. Maybe Heidi had one of her nannies or personal assistants or stylists or maybe even Seal join her in the bathroom stall during her pregnancies, because I just don’t see how a woman who was pregnant four times could possibly think that a pregnant woman should be wearing a unitard. When you are nine months pregnant, it is hard enough to get your pants and underwear down before you have some kind of accident on yourself. Imagine having to take all of your clothing off everytime you needed to pee! And then having to get dressed all over again before you left the stall. And then having to do the same thing again half an hour later when you had to go again!

Take a look for yourself and perhaps you’ll think differently. Normally, I would buy one of these pieces and then report back to you on what I thought of it, but I am so let down by this lackluster collection, I can’t bring myself to give Heidi any of my money.
This Sequined Blouse at left is about the only piece of the Lavish collection that I feel like I haven’t seen before and might be interested in buying (it is USD $195).  There are also these leather leggings available for USD $550.  Heidi is not the first to do a leather maternity legging (Momzee released a pair as part of its Fall 2009 collection), but she is the first to charge USD $550 for them.  I assume these are made from very high quality leather.  If you do buy them, make sure you don’t wear your unitard underneath, you don’t want to pee all over them.