Monica really hates shopping for swimsuits; mostly because many swimsuits emphasize the shape of her body, which up until now, she’s tried to hide. In fact, it’s been years since she’s even owned a swimsuit. Now she’s willing to shop for one and even wear it for her friends.
Now that she understands her body better and the clues it gives her, Monaca is hopeful she might actually find a swimsuit she won’t mind wearing. She knows it’s just a matter of looking for the right design lines.
Keep reading to find out which swimsuit she picked and how she did matching her body’s clues.
Monica’s Body Elements
As a review, these are Monica’s Body Element clues:
- Body Shape — O (Body Shape — The Girls)
- Angular clothes silhouette
- Avoid placing horizontal lines at the waist
- Avoid placing vertical lines at the shoulders
- Face Shape — Pear (Face Shape — The Girls)
- Curved design lines, prints and accessories
- Color Skin, Hair, Eyes — Medium Color Contrast (Color Skin, Hair & Eyes — The Girls)
- Favorite Colors — Green, Yellow and Red/Orange
- Color Combinations (other colors) — Analogous
- Color Combinations (relative lightness and darkness) — Medium contrast
- First Scale Clue — Medium
- Body Proportions — Long between bust/waist, Long between waist/crotch, Short between crotch/knees, Short between knees/floor (Body Proportions — The Girls)
- Horizontal lines — Don’t place them between her crotch/knees and knees/floor but she can place them between her bust and crotch. However, because she has an O Body Shape, she needs to avoid them at her waist
- Vertical lines — Limit them between her bust/crotch but do place them between her crotch/floor
- Second Scale Clue — Increase overall scale between bust/crotch and decrease it between crotch/floor
- Body Frame Size — Medium (Body Frame Size — The Girls)
- Third scale clue — Large
- Scale Strategy — Medium/Large (Scale Strategy — The Girls)
- Increase to large between her bust/crotch
- Decrease to medium between her crotch/floor
Shopping For Swimsuits
When shopping for swimsuits, Monica was drawn to this swimsuit because of the floral print and the red/orange flowers. Red/orange is one of her favorite colors. She also likes the dress aspect of it. Because it flows down from just under her bust, it camouflages her wider waist. However she’s not sure about the length. When she put it on, Monica felt like she could actually wear it on the beach.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Monica’s O Body Shape puts her into the angular silhouette category. The dress part of the swimsuit flows down from just under her bust creating an angular silhouette. Also there’s a pleat in front giving more room.
Horizontal Lines
This swimsuit has a horizontal line just under her bust and another one at the hem just below her crotch.
For Monica’s O Body Shape, she wants to avoid horizontal lines around her waist area. This swimsuit doesn’t have any in this area. The one under her bust and just below her crotch are perfect for her Body Shape. These horizontal lines make these areas appear wider creating balance with her waist.
Monica is long between her bust and waist, and waist and crotch. For her Body Proportion, horizontal lines are important in these areas to make them appear shorter. This creates a conundrum for Monica because her Body Shape dictates avoiding horizontal lines in this area. This is one of the reasons she wears dresses because one doesn’t know where her torso ends and her legs begin. The placement of the horizontal line under her bust is perfect for her. However the one created by the dress’s hem isn’t perfect but isn’t totally wrong. She could go to her tailor/seamstress to have the skirt portion of the swimsuit cut so the hem ends at or just above the leg-hole. By cutting the skirt to the leg/hole; the horizontal line created by the hem is moved to her torso area making it appear shorter.
Vertical Lines
This swimsuit has several vertical lines: the neckline, the center front pleat from under the bust to the hem and a portion of the leg-hole.
The skirt’s center front pleat is important for Monica’s Body Shape. It moves the eye from just under her bust to the hem skipping over her waist area and making it appear thinner.
On the other hand, it’s not so great for her long Body Proportions between her bust and crotch. In this case, her Body Shape outweighs her Body Proportions. Cutting the skirt to the leg-hole area will create a horizontal line which is perfect for both her Body Shape and Body Proportions as discussed above.
Shape Of Design Lines
The floral print design creates curved design lines which are perfect for her curved pear Face Shape.
The other design line is the V-shape neckline which is mostly angular but around the bust area, it becomes curved. Because there are curved aspects to it, it’s not totally wrong.
Color
The main reason Monica was drawn to this swimsuit was the red/orange, one of her favorite colors. Most of the time, she’s drawn to clothes because of color. However there are other color aspects she needs to consider: color combinations and relative lightness and darkness of those colors.
Monica’s color contrast profile is medium and as a result she can wear analogous and triadic color combinations. For the most part, she’s found that analogous works best for her. This swimsuit is close to a triadic color combination: Red/orange, blue and gold.
Her medium color contrast profile also tells her that she should look for relative lightness and darkness in the medium range. This swimsuit has a high contrast color scheme because of the very light gold colors on the black background.
Many color aspects of this swimsuit aren’t ideal for Monica but none of them are a deal breaker because so many of the design lines work for her.
Summary
Many aspects of this swimsuit are perfect for Monica. She did a good job shopping for swimsuits and finding one that works for her Body Shape. This is the main reason she feels comfortable in the swimsuit. If she has the dress portion of the suit shortened to the top of the leg-holes, she’ll like it even more.
The relative lightness and darkness of the print and shape of the neckline are minor problems. It can be hard to find a swimsuit that matches every body clue. In many cases, the only way is to have a swimsuit custom made. She’ll only be wearing it when she’s with her husband and friends and she feels comfortable wearing it around them. This is a big step for her because she has avoided wearing a swimsuit for years.
In the next post, it’s Alice’s turn to share the swimsuit she found. The post is called: Shopping for Swimsuits — Alice.
Wear Your Greatness!!
