Veronica looked forward to going shopping for “my style.” She learned a lot over the last nine months about how to look at her body for clues to determine which design lines and colors enhance her natural beauty. Because she has a short torso and long legs, she has trouble figuring out how to create better balance. Now that she has a better understanding about how to do that, she’s looking forward to showing off her new outfit when she and her friends meet at their next outing.
Veronica was surprised how the outfit came together. It all started with Betsey Johnson sandals.
Veronica’s Body Elements
As a review, these are Veronica’s Body Element clues:
- Body Shape — X (Body Shape — The Girls)
- Curved clothes silhouette
- Can place horizontal and vertical lines almost anywhere when considering Body Shape
- Face Shape — Heart (Face Shape — The Girls)
- Curved design lines, prints and accessories
- Color Skin, Hair, Eyes — Low Color Contrast (Color Skin, Hair & Eyes — The Girls)
- Favorite Colors — Yellow, Violet, Red
- Color Combinations (other colors) — Analogous
- Color Combinations (relative lightness and darkness) — Low contrast
- First Scale Clue — Small
- Body Proportions — Short between bust/waist and waist/crotch, long between crotch/knees and knees/floor (Body Proportions — The Girls)
- Horizontal lines — Place them between her crotch/knees and knees/floor; don’t place them between her bust/waist and waist/crotch
- Vertical lines — Place them between her bust/waist and waist/crotch; don’t place them between her crotch/knees and knees/floor
- Second Scale Clue — Decrease overall scale between bust/waist and waist/crotch; increase it between crotch/knees and knees/floor
- 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 bust/waist and waist/crotch
- Increase to medium between her crotch/knees and knees/floor
Shopping For “My Style” -- Veronica’s Style
Veronica’s “my style” always starts with color because color brings out different qualities in her. For example, her favorite colors are yellow, violet and red: yellow cheers her up, violet brings out the side of her that connects with people, and red brings out the leader in her. If the colors in an outfit don’t connect to her, she won’t wear it.
When it comes to the style of clothes, she likes a lot of different styles. What she really likes are interesting design lines that are unexpected or set it apart from other styles. This reflects the fact that she’s always looking for new ways to transform the status quo.
The first part of Veronica’s “my style” is shoes. She loves shoes. It’s not any shoe: it’s shoes that make a statement and have interesting design lines. At work, she’s known for them. You could say she’s a shoe collector.
Shopping For “My Style” -- Sandals
Veronica’s loves shoes. She thought she would look in the shoe section before she went to the women’s clothes. She saw this Betsey Johnson sandal and she knew she had to have them. Veronica loves the color and the mixed patterns. She has several Betsey Johnson shoes and loves to wear them.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Horizontal Lines
In the past nine months, Veronica learned horizontal lines stop your eyes, emphasize that area, and make it look wider and shorter. She also learned her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her a clue as to the placement of these lines.
For her S Body Shape, Veronica can put them anywhere; but for her Body Proportions she needs to be strategic. She’s short between her bust/waist and waist/crotch, and long between her crotch/knees and knees/floor. This means she wants to avoid them between her bust and crotch and place them between her crotch and floor.
She’s always been drawn to shoes with an ankle strap and she learned a major reason is the strap creates a horizontal line at her ankle. This strap helps make her legs appear shorter and balances out the disparity between her short torso and long legs.
Shape Of Design Lines
Veronica learned that design line shape is an important component of understanding design lines and which ones enhance your natural beauty. There are two categories: angular and curved. Angular design lines have angles and curved design lines are curved. She also learned that her Face Shape gives the clue to which design line shape works best for her. Her Face Shape is heart shaped which is in the curved category.
Veronica has always been drawn to anything floral and the main design lines on these sandals are three different flowers placed on the strap. These flowers create curved design line shapes which are perfect for her.
Color
Veronica loves color and her favorite colors are yellow, violet and red. These sandals have all three. She knows she can wear them with several different outfits this summer.
Veronica also learned in the last 9 months, that the Color of Skin, Hair and Eyes give you clues as to color combinations and the relative lightness and darkness of those combinations. It’s determined by her color contrast profile. This is determined by looking at the contrast between her skin, hair and eyes. The contrast between Veronica’s skin, hair and eyes is low; they are all dark.
She learned that this means the color combinations should be right next to each other and the saturation of the color combinations should be on the same rung of the color wheel.
The main color components of the sandals are the flowers. Each flower’s color combination is monochromatic, but the three flowers together create a triadic color scheme. Two of the flowers have a low color contrast while the middle one’s contrast is medium. On the other hand the heels are black and white creating a high contrast. Because the medium and high color contrasts aren’t close to Veronica’s face, the high contrast can work for her. What’s important is how she feels in the shoes and with the whole outfit on. In this outfit, the sandals are the start of the show and she feels great in them.
One other thing Veronica keeps in mind is that the sandals are the start of the outfit and the rest of the clothing item will support the sandals.
Shopping For “My Style” -- Top
(Macys.com: And Now This Trendy Puff Sleeve Top, UPC 88787018284 (in store only))
This time of year Veronica always sees a lot of clothes with yellow. This is one of her favorite colors because it always makes her happy. She saw this yellow sweater and paired it with the shoes and loved the combination. This was the second piece of her outfit.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Veronica learned that she has an S Body Shape which gives her a clue to the silhouette of the clothes she should wear. An S Body Shape falls into the curved category and gives the clue for curved silhouettes. She learned that this means the waist is significantly smaller than both the shoulders and hips.
When Veronica looked at the sweater’s silhouette she noted it was angular; but she knew, because it was a knit that formed to her body, it would form to her curvy Body Shape, which is perfect for her.
Horizontal Lines
Veronica learned that she needs to limit the horizontal lines between her bust/waist and waist/crotch because her Body Proportions are short in these areas. Horizontal lines will make these areas look even shorter.
There are three horizontal lines in this sweater: the neckline, hem of the sleeve and hem of the sweater body. The horizontal lines created by the neckline and sleeve hem are between Veronica’s chin/bust area, which she learned is fine for her because her Body Proportion in this area is the same. The hem of the sweater body lands just above her crotch, which gives her length. Also because she’s wearing this sweater with a skirt, it’s hard to tell where her torso ends and legs begin. This is the number one reason she wears a lot of skirts and dresses.
Shape Of Design Lines
Veronica learned that she needs to look for curved design lines shapes. This sweater has one design line shape and that’s the crew neckline, which is curved.
Color
The color of the sweater is yellow, one of her favorite colors. She’s excited that yellow is in season and looking forward to finding other pieces for her closet. Spring is the only time of the year she finds yellow.
Shopping For “My Style” Necklace
Next, Veronica walked by the jewelry department and spotted this necklace. One of her favorite colors is violet and she knows violet and yellow go together and more importantly the combination is perfect for the shoes.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Horizontal/Vertical Lines
This necklace does create vertical lines by drawing the eye down to the biggest flower in the middle where the eye stops. But the flower doesn’t create a strong horizontal line which is perfect for Veronica because she wants to lessen horizontal lines and create vertical lines to help lengthen her torso.
Shape Of Design Lines
With Veronica’s Face Shape being heart shaped, she knew that the overall shape of the necklace should be curved. The floral motif of it has a curved feel, which is perfect for her.
Color
The color violet is one of Veronica’s favorite colors so she knows the color works for her, but she’s not sure about the color combination with the yellow sweater. She knows her color contrast profile is low and knows the best color combination is analogous, colors right next to each other. However, this color combination is complementary, opposite of each other.
Then Veronica thought about the relative lightness and darkness of the colors. She learned that she needs to stay on the same rung of the color wheel and thought the two colors did that.
When she tried on the yellow sweater and violet necklace, she loved the combination and how she felt in it. She learned that she can break the guidelines as long as the other elements are right for her and most importantly, she has to feel light when wearing them. Veronica loved the sweater, necklace and the shoes together.
Scale
Veronica’s overall scale strategy is small/medium. Her Body Proportions between her chin/bust is the same. She learned that the scale of the necklace should be in the small/medium range. This necklace is closer to medium. She thought that because the shoes were so bold she needed to balance them with a larger scale necklace. Also she knew that she has the personality to pull it off.
Shopping For “My Style” -- Skirt
Veronica had her eye on this skirt for a while because it’s so versatile. She can dress it up or down depending on the occasion. Another reason this skirt works for her is because you can’t tell where her short torso ends and long legs begin. She wears a lot of dresses and skirts for this reason alone.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Veronica noted that the silhouette of this skirt is angular, but knows the scuba knit will easily form to her body transforming it into a curvy silhouette.
Horizontal/Vertical Lines
Veronica noted the skirt had two horizontal lines and no vertical lines. The horizontal lines are at the waist and the hem. She knows she’ll always be wearing tops/sweaters out to cover up the waistband. She learned that she can’t tuck anything in because it’ll create a horizontal line at her waist making her torso appear even shorter.
Veronica noticed that this skirt doesn’t have vertical lines, which is what she wanted. She learned vertical lines draw the eye up and down and make the area appear thinner and taller. Her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues to the placement of these design lines. For her S Body Shape, she can place them anywhere. However, she has to be careful where she places them for her Body Proportions. With her torso being shorter than her legs, she wants them in her torso area and avoids them in her leg area. She couldn’t find a top with a longer hemline in one of her favorite colors. Most of the tops this season are cropped which isn’t a good look for her.
Final Thoughts
Veronica’s knowledge and confidence about how to balance her short torso and long legs has grown over the last nine months. The ready-to-wear world doesn’t always provide her with the clothes to do it; but with this newfound knowledge, she’s learning to work around it. She now knows it’s a matter of placing horizontal and vertical lines in the proper places. As a result, Veronica is able to be more herself.
Monica has been listening to podcasts about longevity and the importance of keeping muscle. She was specifically listening to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. She talked to her friends about it and wants to start going to the gym to make sure they don’t lose any muscle. To do that they need clothes to work out in. Most women want to wear workout clothes that help them tap into their confidence because this is a new adventure for them. Sam is the only one who works out on a regular basis and most of her workout clothes are wearing out. Learn which ones she purchased in Shopping For Workout Clothes — Sam.
Wear Your Greatness!!
