Find out how to choose the right clothes for you. We’ll talk about shapes and curves and why it’s more important to choose clothes that respect them than to follow general advice. We won’t address body types or try to cover up your imperfections. Instead, you’ll find clothes that match your body perfectly.
Anyone who has any interest in fashion and style has probably heard of “body types”. Most of the time, the body types mentioned are pear, apple, hourglass and rectangle or inverted triangle. Such types exist as a kind of simplification that makes it easier to give at least general advice. But no typology can be perfect – people are just too different. We are made up of many body parts that can be of many different sizes, and thus the number of possible combinations is too large for any theory to cover completely. So how do we do that – how do we write a manual for everyone on how to work with their body shapes, no matter how many possibilities there are? That’s the question I face at the beginning of this tutorial 🙂
Stylists have a lot of tips on how to dress – what to wear if you have short legs, broad shoulders, small breasts, a bigger tummy, … basically it’s about how to get as close as possible to the average or the current ideal. Such types have one common principle – clothes should cover what is wrong with your curves. Add volume where it’s lacking. Be longer where you are too short. And distract from what’s not quite right in the first place. What I don’t like about the approach is the underlying subliminal message that everything that’s different from the average is wrong and we should be ashamed of it.
I hope you’ll forgive me for not giving you any such advice. I think you can find plenty of it on the internet if you want it badly enough. I want to suggest a different approach here – embrace your natural shapes as much as your natural colors, and make them part of your style. And instead of looking for clothes that cover your flaws, look for clothes that respect the natural shapes of your body. Clothes that are round where you are. Straight where you are. And they accentuate your natural beauty, whether it’s more soft and delicate or hard and sharp. You can spend a lifetime trying to convince your body to forget its genes, shift its bones and have the kind of beauty you like… or you can accept that you can be a bad imitation of your ideal or a great version of yourself… and choose the latter 🙂
An apple, an hourglass, a rectangle and a pear may sound nice and it would be easier to write about them, but let’s look at it another way…
My main inspiration for the “shape approach” is Kibbe’s style typology – very well known and often used by international stylists. Unfortunately, you will not read much about it here. But I will explain the basics: David Kibbe created a typology that includes 13 body types (5 basic ones + others that are on the border of two types). Each type is characterized by specific body shapes, including the face, and has a recommended certain style of clothing, including haircuts. Interestingly, the types are also placed on an imaginary yin-yang scale that represents two opposing poles – softness and sharpness. The softest style is romantic and the harshest dramatic. In between are gamine, natural and classic. I don’t think Kibbe’s typology is perfect and should be followed by everyone, personal style is a bit more complex, but it has its place in the search for right shapes – at least as an inspiration.
The principle that we take from this typology is theoretically simple – we choose clothes in shapes that match our body shapes. The only complication is that each body is usually a combination of several shapes. You can have a round face but sharper shoulders, a short torso and long legs, a flat chest and round hips, … Your clothes have to accommodate all that. But the face is usually the most important thing, at least when it comes to the overall look. It’s the thing we communicate with the most.
Examine your facial features in a photo or in a mirror. Are they more round or more angular? Do you see sharpness or softness? Maybe something in between – straight lines rather than sharp angles? Then your clothes, jewellery, patterns should have similar lines or curves. People with more pronounced, sharper features are better suited to geometric prints, while delicate, round-faced women need something less expressive, like tiny flowers or polka dots. So pay attention to the size of your body and its parts. Are you petite or taller? Are your lips narrow or full? Petite people need small accessories. A sturdier woman can tolerate a larger frill than a petite one. A woman with wild curly hair will try in vain to achieve a highly elegant look, and the naturally sleek lady will get lost in a colorful bohemian outfit. Like with your colors, look for clothes that are similar to your body.
Here are some exmaples.
Let’s start with a lady who at first glance has more lines than curves – except for a softer face. Her hips are as wide as her chest and waist, her shoulders slightly rounded but not narrow. Overall, she does not look directly fragile and feminine, but rather sturdy 🙂 Based on body types, she would probably be a rectangle and Kibbe’s natural style. I don’t think the lady in the picture is a natural, though, the athletic style she’s wearing suits her better. But this tutorial is about shapes, not colors and style overall, so I just stuck to shapes when creating examples of appropriate clothing. These are – as on the lady’s body – more or less composed of straight lines. Straight trousers and shirt (with rounded shoulders, similar to hers), straight jacket, backpack, sneakers, very simple earrings. A suitable outfit for a woman who likes natural style and colors and has a similar body shape to the lady in the photo.
For the second demonstration I chose a lady with more pronounced curves for comparison. Her hips are wider than her waist and chest and rounded, and her legs and arms are slightly rounded as well. At first glance, her body appears soft and feminine, but not overly fragile. Stylists would probably describe her figure as a pear. According to Kibbe, she could be romantic, but more so when mixed with another type. I can also see her as dramatic – in her facial features, expression, body colors. I would definitely recommend soft, flowing materials for her, nothing too firm. For the show, I chose a skirt with draping that hugs her curves, and a knit cold shoulder top that has a rounded neckline and cutouts but isn’t too round and has a touch of that drama and sexiness. It’s hard to find a suitable coat, so at least an approximately – short, softer, maybe the lady could have sharper lapels. The hoops in her ears, which she also has in the photo, obviously suit her.
Finally, a lady with sharper features, slender, who possesses a certain fragility despite her sharpness. Her figure is more or less straight, so we will again stick to lines rather than curves, but she also has more angular features. She’s muscular rather than rounded, but not in any significant way – her limbs are narrow. Although she differs from the lady in the first photo, she would also be classified as a rectangle type. In Kibbe’s she could be gamine or dramatic, but I see her as ethereal (a type added by other authors), in her long lines, fragility and colors. Her clothes might have an occasional sharper shape, like a coat or perhaps jewellery, and her outfits should be simple, built on long lines. Materials may combine light and delicate with more solid ones, but should never be too heavy. Maybe leather is a bit much, maybe only on shoes or a handbag. She can also go for shine and glitter.
If you still don’t know, don’t worry about it. It’s not easy to know from a few tips and examples, without much experience with typologies etc, what exactly you should wear. Maybe all this talk about softness, curves and lines is too abstract for you and you can’t see what I see. That’s okay. The best way to find out what looks good on you is to experiment. I think most people can tell what fits them and what doesn’t, and then with time and experience they find the right fits themselves without the advice of stylists. Or, if they have confidence, they do. You mustn’t let yourself get too talked down by your peers, who sort of instinctively force you to wear what they like or what suits them 🙂 And don’t look at what’s trendy. There are often styles in the shops that don’t fit half the population, so it’s normal if you can’t find anything suitable.
Don’t give up and at least stick to the basics – curves require soft materials, draping and similar enhancements to give them some breathing room, hug them, and accentuate them. Conversely, people with straighter figures need straighter cuts and will look out of place in an hourglass dress – you’ll know there are supposed to be some curves and there aren’t. Don’t think about how to “fix” your flaws and what a stylist or magazine would tell you. Stick to how your body looks and you’ll find your best looks over time. You might find that it’s one style of trousers, two styles of skirt and five types of tops. That’s normal too – you don’t have to wear everything, just pick what’s best for you.
Finally, the last example – my styles and some elements. The best I can get. Soft and flowing materials, long and rounded lines, narrow tops, flared skirts, small patterns, simplicity, and a little of that ethereal antiquity. Basically, I only wear a few of the best styles and it doesn’t matter, quite the opposite. Not only do I look good and know exactly what to look for in the shops, but it adds stability to my style – a predictability that just belongs to personal style.
Can’t find the right fit, can’t see what shape your body is, or are you otherwise stumped? It takes practice, browsing shops and trying on different things, but sometimes it’s also good to have an objective eye to better assess whether the thing you’re trying on suits you. If you need help, email me at info@yourfashionself.com or through the contact form.
Maybe you can send a few pictures of yourself in different things and I can advise you on which styles suit you more and less and what to look for based on the shapes I see in you 🙂
Nerisa Kalošin, ID: 05218349
Nové sady 988/2, 602 00, Brno, Czechia
Single entrepreneur operating under a business licence.
©2024 Nerisa Kaloshin | Images by freepik and Pexels
