Alice is looking forward to learning how to analyze her favorite outfit. Because of her Body Shape, learning what design lines work well with it has been hard for her. She’s had help from her friends but it’s not easy to translate into knowledge she can use.
She has a new job and needs to travel quite a bit. As a result Alice wants to upgrade her clothes so they reflect her and what she brings to the table.
Let’s see what Alice has learned.
Alice’s Body Elements
Over the past 6 blog posts, Alice learned about the clues her Body Elements give her when determining which design lines and colors enhance her natural beauty and help her tap into her confidence and personal power. By understanding these clues her perspective on clothes has totally changed. Her Body Element clues are:
- Body Shape — V (Body Shape — The Girls)
- Angular clothes silhouette
- Horizontal lines — Place them at her waist and hips, and avoid placing them at her shoulders
- Vertical lines — Place them between her chin and bust, and avoid placing them at the waist and hips
- Face Shape — Rectangle (Face Shape — The Girls)
- Angular design lines, prints and accessories
- Color Skin, Hair, Eyes — Low Color Contrast (Color Skin, Hair & Eyes — The Girls)
- Favorite Colors — Olive Green, Coral, Violet
- Color Combinations (other colors) — Analogous
- Color Combinations (relative lightness and darkness) — Low contrast
- First Scale Clue — Small
- Body Proportions — Short between chin/bust, Long between waist/crotch (Body Proportions — The Girls)
- Horizontal lines — Place them between her waist/crotch, and don’t place them between her chin/bust
- Vertical lines — Place them between her chin/bust, and limit them between her waist/crotch
- Second Scale Clue — Decrease overall scale between chin/bust and increase it between waist/crotch
- Body Frame Size — Medium (Body Frame Size — The Girls)
- Third scale clue — Medium
- Scale Strategy — Small/Medium (Scale Strategy — The Girls)
- Decrease scale to small between her chin/bust
- Increase to medium between her waist/crotch
Analyze Favorite Outfit -- Favorite Outfit
Alice’s favorite outfit is a dress. She loves wearing it to work and evenings out with her husband. Because of her Body Shape she’s always been drawn to dresses because they’re much easier to wear. Pants and skirts are difficult because she has no butt and her waist and hips are the same width. As a result there’s nothing holding pants and skirts up.
Alice needs to wear business casual and business formal clothes every day because she’s an executive assistant to a vice president of public affairs in a high-tech company in the medical industry. Her boss travels around the world talking to world leaders who make policy decisions. She loves her job because every day is different and her organizational skills allow her boss to do what she does best, bringing people together to solve important issues.
Alice would love to be able to find a pair of pants she could wear. She gets tired of wearing dresses and there are times when pants are more appropriate. This is why she decided to learn about her Body Elements. She feels confined in her current clothing choices.
Analyze Favorite Outfit -- Dress
There are so many things she loves about this dress. First of all, she loves the color. She loves wearing olive green because she feels grounded when wearing it. In her job she has many balls in the air and if she allows it, she can feel overwhelmed. As a result, she has a lot of this color in her closet.
When she bought this dress, it also came in her favorite violet color so she purchased it too. She does this quite a lot, whenever she finds something that fits her well she buys other colors.
Alice seems to gravitate to the V-neckline. Sometimes it’s hard to find the exact right shape. If it’s too low it doesn’t work because her cleavage shows too much. She also likes the neckline to start at mid-shoulder. She doesn’t know why but it works for her.
Finally she gravitates toward belts. Most of the time to get dresses, tops and jackets to fit her shoulders, the waist and hips are too big. A friend showed her that if she wore a belt no one could tell that the waist and hips were too big.
The hem hits just above her knees. She doesn’t like to wear dresses any shorter because she moves around a lot.
Analyze Favorite Outfits -- Design Lines & Colors
The neckline on this dress is perfect for Alice. It has an angular shape which matches her angular face shape. More importantly, the placement of the dress on her shoulders is perfect for her. A V-neckline creates a vertical line and starting this line at mid-shoulders makes her shoulders appear thinner. Also Alice is short between her chin and bust. Wearing vertical lines in this area makes it appear longer.
The silhouette of the dress is angular which matches with her angular Body Shape.
Placing a belt just below her natural waist is also perfect. It not only creates the illusion that the dress fits her smaller waist and hips, but also makes the area between her waist and crotch appear shorter. The medium size belt is perfect scale wise.
Overall this dress is perfect for Alice.
Summary
Dress To Tops, Blouses And Jackets
How can she use this knowledge and translate it into tops, blouses, jackets and pants? For tops, blouses and jackets, Alice should look for vertical lines between her chin and bust. These vertical lines do two jobs. First and most importantly they make this area appear thinner. Secondly they create the appearance of length in this area because Body Proportion wise she’s short. In the pictures below are four examples of vertical lines: ruffles, princess lines starting at the mid-shoulders, design line detail creating slits and raglan sleeves. (To see the design lines in more detail go to the link below and put the cursor on the picture.)
Alice should also look for horizontal lines that fall between the waist and hips. Placing them here will help balance out the shoulders along with shortening the waist to crotch area. Horizontal lines can be created by belts, like Alice is already doing. She can also look for gathered waists like the first picture or seam lines as shown in the second picture. When wearing tops or blouses out, along with jackets, the hem line also creates a horizontal line.
Alice needs to make sure the tops, blouses, jackets and dresses fit at her shoulders which will cause them to be too big at the waist and hips. As a result she’ll need to have them altered in this area. Having her clothes altered will be the secret weapon she needs to create a closet full of clothes she loves to wear.
Pants
When it comes to pants Alice most likely won’t be able to buy them off the sales floor and then wear them. She’ll need to have alterations made in the hip area along with the butt curve. There are some manufactures that create pants with smaller butts like the JM Collection brand at Macys. However, Alice needs to remember that matching her exact curves might be tricky, but that’s OK. These alterations can be made by tailors/seamstresses with experience. The key for Alice to remember is to find a manufacturer that fits her curves the best and then alter the clothes to have an even better fit.
When looking for pants, another thing Alice needs to consider is the type of fabric. She should look for fabric with stretch in it. This way the pants firmly fit around her waist and hips and at the same time she can move around. Stretch can be created in two ways: knit fabric and fibers with Lycra designed into it. Pants made out of a knit fabric allow Alice to move easily. A great fabric is Ponte Roma. It’s a double knit and is great for work pants. However it can be less dressy. For times when she needs to wear formal business clothes, she should choose pants with a woven fabric with Lycra designed into the fiber. This fabric doesn’t stretch as much as knit fabric but will stretch as she moves.
Final Thoughts
For Alice to create a closet full of clothes she loves to wear, in most cases, she’ll need to have them altered. By doing this she’ll be able tap into her confidence and personal power. Every day she’ll have the confidence to conquer her world.For Alice to create a closet full of clothes she loves to wear, in most cases, she’ll need to have them altered. By doing this she’ll be able tap into her confidence and personal power. Every day she’ll have the confidence to conquer her world.
As with Monica, if she can’t find clothes that work for her Body Clues in a particular fashion season, she can have her clothes custom made. This way she can wear clothes that are tailored to fit all of her body clues.
Next week Grace will be learning how to analyze her favorite outfit. She’s excited to learn how to create a closet full of clothes she loves to wear. She knows clothes can change how she feels and wants to feel like she can conquer her world every day. This post is titled: Analyze Favorite Outfit — Grace.
Wear Your Greatness!!
