"You're Made to Feel Like Your Body Is Wrong": Amy Schumer on Hollywood Fittings and Launching Her Own Line

"Feel free to put in your article that I’m on a CBD edible and loving it,” Amy Schumer says as a kind of introduction when we meet at a restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side. The actress, who announced her pregnancy to the world on Instagram only a day before, has tried just about everything to quell morning sickness. Fortunately, she’s feeling well enough today to have gathered with three of her closest friends — stylist Leesa Evans, comedy singer Bridget Everett, and comedian Marina Franklin — to celebrate the release of Le Cloud, the clothing line she and Evans created.

As the cameras start clicking, they lampoon the classic Sex and the City ladies-who-brunch scene, with Schumer biting seductively into a scone as the girls pretend to down drinks. The four women laugh giddily, and then it’s on to the next shot, but not before Schumer ditches her heels. She has always been someone who prioritizes comfort, and both Le Cloud and the CBD are keeping the 37-year-old expectant mom in a relaxed state.

VIDEO: Amy Schumer and Leesa Evans Launch Le Cloud

“I don’t know how the world is going to deal with me as a pregnant person,” she says, amused. But as evidenced by her frequent social-media clapbacks, she doesn’t pay much mind to what the world thinks. She’s got the support she needs from her husband, chef Chris Fischer, and her inner circle of friends — including the ones who showed up today to model the new merch.

Le Cloud was basically born out of the star’s refusal to wear anything but sweatpants. “Amy is always asking me ‘Does it feel like a cloud?’ before she puts anything on,” says Evans, who has been Schumer’s personal stylist since they became friends while working together on the film Trainwreck.

“I kept trying to find the sweatpants alternative that had both comfort and style and that was appropriate to go to meetings, out with friends, to a movie, all over,” says Evans. She came through, designing some original pieces for the actress to wear on her I Feel Pretty press tour. Then they realized these were clothes their friends wanted to wear too.

With that in mind, Schumer and Evans made sure that Le Cloud was accessible to all. The line, which goes up to a size 20, ranges from $38 to $248 for versatile tops, pencil skirts, dresses, and pants, all in solid shades of camel, navy, hunter green, and black. Formfitting fabrics like scuba and crêpe deliver on softness but hold their shape. “You can walk in a room and not worry about your clothes anymore: ‘Is this showing? Is this pulling?’ ” says Schumer.

Prior to meeting Evans, Schumer says she generally used fashion as a defense mechanism. “If the clothes don’t look good on you, you’re made to feel like it’s your fault, like your body is wrong,” she says of Hollywood fittings — and shopping in general. “I realized I dress badly a lot of the time because I don’t want to be judged as a woman, so I sort of take myself out of the game.”

Her first fitting with Evans changed that. “Leesa wants the person to shine and the clothes to take a back seat,” Schumer says. “She doesn’t want you to go, ‘I love that outfit.’ She wants you to go, ‘I look great. I’ve never seen my body in that way before.’ ” It was a lesson Evans had to relearn herself over a decade ago when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and gained 50 pounds. “There are some clothes that make you feel so good, comfortable, and confident that you forget what you’re wearing,” Evans says, and that’s how they hope other women will feel about Le Cloud too. The brand’s feel-good mission extends to sales, a percentage of which benefits Stylefund, the duo’s nonprofit that helps women dress for confidence through styling events and training.

According to her friends, Schumer's big on putting others first. “What she's done for me and many of my friends is like, ‘Does someone like that really exist?’” says Everett. They met at a 2009 comedy festival and bonded instantly over their love for Chardonnay and being crazy dog moms. Schumer asked Everett to join her on tour as an opening act but later decided that Everett’s cabaret comedy was so good, it deserved the main ticket — so Schumer opened instead. For Everett, it was a career-making partnership. “She just wants to make everybody shine. If I were in her place of power, I'd be like, ‘Fuck all of you! I'm leaving you behind!’”

“Women have been made to feel so bad about themselves,” Schumer says. “It feels great to take the reins and be like, ‘None of that.’ ”

Schumer also isn’t a fan of the notion that women should stop, drop, and incubate for nine months when they become pregnant. “You're supposed to be this puritan, this saint. It's really Handmaid's Tale, like — no, I'm still gonna do me,” she says, currently on the heels of a stand-up tour, with another one planned for January. “You don't stop being who you are just because you have a baby in you. You're still an artist, a writer, an activist, a dumb bitch.”

Twelve weeks in, things Schumer likes about pregnancy include sonograms — “Hearing the heartbeat, seeing a little being in there moving around, you can’t even fucking imagine it”— and that’s it. “Wait, do you think there's an upside?” she says, laughing. “Anyone who says they loved being pregnant, I'm like, ‘Are you out of your mind?’”

As her pregnancy progresses, one can bet that Schumer will be living in the heavenly Le Cloud clothes. “What excites me the most right now,” she says, is the after-pregnancy bit, “the idea of trick-or-treating and snuggling."

Does she ever wonder what will happen when her child checks out her performances? “I think my kid will be really proud,” she says. “Especially because I’m evolving. If I were still up there playing the character I played when I first started, they could be like, ‘Momm.’ ”

For the next six months, though, she’s anticipating what creativity the Internet will throw at her. “I’m sure I'll get parenting shamed and whatever. I’m hoping for the best but assuming the worst,” she says. “And I'll continue to not give a fuck.”

Photographed by Marcelo Krasilcic. Amy Schumer: Hair: Kim Gueldner. Makeup: Andrea Tiller. Leesa Evans: Hair: Leonardo Manetti. Makeup: Jessica Smalls. Bridget Everett: Hair: Rheanna White. Makeup: Rebecca Taylor. Marina Franklin: Hair: Falon Jaloi. Makeup: Kim White. Manicures: Sarah Nguyen. Production: Sister Productions.

Le Cloud will be available on 12/13 online and in-store at the Saks OFF 5TH 57th Street Flagship in NYC and the Beverly Connection location in Los Angeles.

Image 1: From left: Leesa Evans in Isabel Marant boots with an Oscar de la Renta bag. Amy Schumer in Pared Eyewear sunglasses and Chloe Gosselin boots. Marina Franklin in Quay Australia sunglasses, Flrnz rings, and Tabitha Simmons boots. Bridget Everett in Quay Australia sunglasses, Laura Lombardi hoops, a Janis Savitt bracelet, and Tabitha Simmons boots with a Simon Miller handbag. All other clothing, Le Cloud.

Image 2: Schumer in Yuul Yie shoes. Evans with a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. Everett in a Land’s End T-shirt, Laura Lombardi hoops, and a Janis Savitt bracelet with a Salvatore Ferragamo bag (on table). Franklin in Jennifer Fisher hoops, Flrnz rings, and Paul Andrew boots with a Simon Miller bag. All other clothing, Le Cloud.

For more stories like this, pick up the January issue of InStyle, available on newsstands, on Amazon, and for digital download Dec. 7.