The Right Clothes For Your Body Type
| One needs to understand one’s assets and flaws and how to use the resources of clothes, grooming and behaviour to flatter the assets and suppress the flaws. Below are some tips to help you find the perfect outfits for your body type: |
Strapless or sleeveless outfits expose the body to view and generally emphasise whatever is seen. Short sleeves expose the arm, shorts skirts expose the leg, and so forth. If that’s not what you want, you’ll need to cover up.
Narrow shapes and tight-fitting or clingy fabric expose whatever body part is underneath, generally emphasising it. If that’s not what you want, you’ll want slightly wider shapes and a looser fit.
A helpful general guideline is to look for clothing styles that will naturally accommodate your figure type and any other figure variations. In other words, the garment shape makes visual sense, as it essentially repeats your body shape.
Clothing styles in this shape are made for you.
Selected in the right size with ample ease allowance, these styles flow easily over your entire figure, even in areas where you may be larger. The clothing silhouette is dominant and your body is subordinate. For example, an A-line skirt or shirtwaist dress with a flared skirt easily accommodates the proportionally larger hip and thigh area of a triangular figure while a wedge-style chemise dress easily accommodates the proportionally larger shoulders of an inverted triangular figure, flowing easily over the bust and midriff to the waist below. A contrasting yoke on a sport shirt or polo created by colour, texture or pattern can naturally accommodate a triangular male body.
Another general guideline worth knowing is to look for clothing styles that naturally cover, camouflage, counter and minimise to create attractive illusions about body areas that you may consider less attractive and reinforce or emphasise the most attractive characteristics about your figure. If better balance is needed, you’re looking for clothing styles that will fill out smaller or narrower areas of your figure to counterbalance larger areas. For example, the same shirtwaist dress, with moderate shoulder pads, slight gathering below the shoulder yoke and blousing at the waist works beautifully to fill out the upper body area, for better balance with the lower torso area of a triangular figure. Palazzo pants work to fill out the leg area of an inverted triangular or diamond-shaped figure for better balance with the top of the figure. At the same time, width at the hem of the pants will emphasise slim ankles. A men’s suit jacket with peaked lapels and well – proportioned shoulder pads counter the narrower shoulders of a triangular body.
u Choose style shapes with characteristics that look, feel, and hang appropriately for the fabric of the garment. Choose style shapes that will fit in well and coordinate with the existing wardrobe.
Coordinate or combine shapes as well as separates in two or more styles, to achieve greater variety, interest, and individuality.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Having started her journey of Perfect Impressions in 2002, Shweta Singh is a certified Image Consultant, trained from a pioneer Image Consulting Business Institute under the curriculum of Conselle institute of Image Management, USA.
