For the first time, Alice can see herself building her dream closet because now she has the knowledge to distinguish which clothes work for her body. As a result, she’s experienced how clothes change how she feels and is able to tap into her confidence. It allows her to do what she does best as an executive assistant, and in return, allows her boss to do what she does best.
During this shopping trip with her friends: Sam, Monica, Grace and Veronica, Alice is looking for clothes to wear to work. Now that she knows what to look for, she’ll be able to zone in on the design lines and colors that work best for her. As a result, shopping won’t be as overwhelming.
Keep reading to learn what she found.
Alice’s Body Elements
As a review, these are Alice’s Body Element clues:
- 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 her 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
Building Dream Closet -- Dress
Alice’s go-to outfit is a dress: because of her V Body Shape she has no waist or hips. Most pants and skirts slip down because there’s nothing to hold them up. She started out looking at colors and then looked at the design lines. This tactic helps her easily weed out dresses that won’t work for her. As a result, she’s not as overwhelmed by the process.
While shopping in the store, Alice didn’t see any dresses that worked well for her body clues and were in her size. When she got home she went on Macys.com to see if she could find something. She came across this Anne Klein faux-wrap dress. This style of dress is a style she loves to wear. It’s comfortable for work and going out to dinner afterwards. The color combination of blue and blue/green is a little out of the colors she loves to wear. So she ordered it to find out how she felt in it. When Alice tried it on, she loved the way it felt. It’s definitely something she would feel confident in at work.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Alice learned that clothes have two categories: angular and curved. Her V Body Shape gives her clues as to which silhouette category works for her. Because her hips are significantly smaller than her shoulders, her V Body Shape falls into the angular category, which means she should wear clothes with an angular silhouette.
This dress is made out of a knit and can flatter most body shapes. One reason why this style of dress is a staple in most closets.
Horizontal Lines
Alice has learned that horizontal lines stop your eyes, emphasize the area and make it appear wider and shorter. Her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines. For her Body Shape, Alice doesn’t want to put horizontal design lines in her shoulder area because they’ll emphasize this area and make it appear wider. She does want to put them in her waist and hip areas because they’ll emphasize these areas and make them appear wider and more in proportion with her shoulders.
For her Body Proportions, she’s short between her chin/bust and long between her waist/crotch. Alice doesn’t want to place horizontal lines between her chin/bust because they’ll make this area appear even shorter. She does want to place them between her waist and crotch because they’ll make this area appear shorter.
When Alice followed her eye down the front of the dress, the first place it stopped was at the side waist where there is a tie. The next place her eye stopped was the hem of the sleeves which is in the hip area. The last horizontal line was the hem of the dress. All three work well for her Body Shape and Body Proportions.
Vertical Lines
Over the last year, Alice learned that vertical lines move the eye up and down, moving the eye away from an area. They also make the area appear thinner and taller. She also learned that her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines.
For her Body Shape, Alice wants to put them in her shoulder area to move the eye away from this area and make it appear thinner. She doesn’t want to place them in her waist and hip areas because they’ll make these areas appear even thinner.
For her Body Proportions, Alice wants to put vertical design lines between her chin/bust because they’ll make this area appear longer. She doesn’t want to put them just between her waist/crotch because this area will appear even longer.
With this being a faux-wrap dress, there’s a continuous vertical line that goes from her right shoulder to her left waist and then it goes down straight to the hem of the dress. There’s also a vertical line that starts at her left shoulder and then goes down toward her right waist until it intersects with the first vertical line. This creates a v-neckline.
These vertical design lines work well for Alice’s Body Shape and Body Proportions. For her Body Shape, the V-neck line helps make her shoulders appear thinner and more in proportion with her waist and hips. The vertical line that creates the illusions of a wrap dress crosses over her body to her waist, bringing emphasis to this area. As it falls to the hem, it doesn’t make this area appear thinner because it’s so far to the side. Alice determines these design lines work perfectly for her.
Shape Of Design Lines
Alice also learned that her Face Shape gives her clues as to the shape of design lines. She has a rectangle Face Shape; therefore, she should wear angular design lines. She should look for these in clothes’ design lines, accessories and prints.
Alice determined this dress has two areas with design line shape: the neckline and print. The neckline has a V-shape creating an angular shape. The print is floral. In many cases, this type of print is curved. However, straight lines are used to create a flower, which gives this floral pattern an angular feel. Before learning what clues her body gives her, Alice never touched prints because she couldn’t figure out which ones looked good on her. Now that she has this knowledge, she’s bringing more prints into her closet.
Color
What also helped Alice step into the world of prints is understanding the clues that the color of her skin, hair and eyes give her. Her coloring gives her clues as to color combinations and the relative lightness and darkness of these colors. She learned that the contrast in color between her skin, hair and eyes gives her a low color contrast profile. This means the color combinations that work best for her are monochromatic (same color family) and analogous (colors right next to each other.
Also having a low color contrast profile, Alice should wear prints with colors that are one rung lighter and/or darker in the same color family or on the same rung, wearing colors right next to each other.
It was hard to determine all the aspects of the printed colors on this dress online. Since she liked all the design lines, Alice decided to purchase it to determine if the colors in the print work for her or not. She determined the major colors in the print are blue and blue/green which are right next to each other and the relative lightness and darkness of these colors appear to be on the same rung. What Alice couldn’t determine online were the white petals and navy background. This threw her a curveball.
Then she remembered that not every aspect of an outfit’s design lines and colors will necessarily match her body’s clues. The true test is how it feels when wearing it. Does it feel light or heavy? When she put on the dress, necklace and shoes she felt light and confident. She also felt her confidence in picking prints increase.
Scale
Alice learned the last piece of the print puzzle is the scale of the print. That means how big or small the print is. The combination of the clues from her Coloring, Body Frame Size and Body Proportions determine her ideal scale size, which is small/medium. That also applies to the scale of accessories.
The print scale is small. She thought if she played with the scale of a necklace, it might balance it out and she found a necklace that did just that.
Building Dream Closet -- Necklace
Alice has always been drawn to lariat necklaces. She never knew why until this past year. What drew her to this one are the crystals in the spike. It’s larger than what she would normally wear, but felt like it went well with the dress. She bought it online with the dress.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Vertical Lines
The reason why Alice is drawn to lariat necklaces is because they create vertical design lines. She learned that they’re important between her chin and bust because they help visually decrease the width of her shoulders and also lengthen this area.
Shape Of Design Lines
Because Alice has an angular Face Shape, she looked for necklaces that have an angular shape. The spike pendant gave her the angular shape she was looking for.
Scale
This past year, Alice learned a lot about the scale of accessories and prints. She learned that her overall scale is small/medium and because she’s short between her chin/bust, she should wear necklaces in the small range.
When looking online at the picture she couldn’t determine the scale, but liked everything else about it so she purchased it.
Alice tried on the necklace with the dress and liked the overall look. She thought the scale of the spike pendant might be in the medium range, which is a bit too big for her. However, the scale of the print was on the smaller side. Since she’s still experimenting with wearing prints this is a big step forward for her.
When determining if wearing the necklace and dress together made her feel light or heavy, Alice determined that she felt lighter. She thought she was headed in the right direction. This fact alone fed into her confidence.
Building Dream Closet -- Shoes
Alice loves wearing slingback shoes to work. She loved the heels on this pair because they had a solid base. Because Alice is on her feet most of the day, these shoes felt comfortable. She bought them while shopping with her friends because she doesn’t have enough tan work shoes.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Shape Of Design Lines
Alice looked for shoes with angular design lines because of her rectangular Face Shape. This season, she had a lot of choices. These shoes have a pointed toe, the top is squared off and the heels have an angular feel to them.
Final Thoughts
Alice is expanding her style. Before she understood the clues her body gave her for design lines and color, she only wore solid colors because she didn’t know how to choose prints. Now she’s developing the confidence to venture into the world of prints. This will open up the possibilities for her to show off different parts of her personality. Her choices might not be perfect, but they’re definitely a step in the right direction.
In the next blog post, Grace will share her choices in building her dream closet. Now that she understands the clues her body gives her, she too is expanding her style. The post is called: Building Dream Closet — Grace.
Wear Your Greatness!!
