Alice loves the idea of transferring her knowledge about the best design lines for her to what to wear to bed. Her newfound knowledge has empowered her. She doesn’t feel like a victim to the fashion industry that doesn’t design for her body specifically. By understanding which design lines work and don’t work for her, she can look for solutions to alter the ones that don’t. Along with wearing clothes that help her step into her confidence, having the skills to choose which design lines to wear and not to wear has added to this confidence.
Keep reading to learn how Alice finds a solution to a design line that doesn’t work for her.
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
What To Wear To Bed -- Top
When looking for pajama tops, Alice looked for ones with raglan sleeves. Over this past year, she has found that this type of sleeve works best for her, especially for tops like this. She also looked for ones with a V-neckline. Both of these together help make her feel more balanced. She has noticed when she feels balanced, she is more focused on the task at hand. As a result, the quality of her work has increased.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Over this last year, Alice learned to look at the silhouette of an outfit. It’s the outside lines: the difference between the shoulders/waist, waist/hips and hips/shoulders. There are two types of silhouettes: angular and curved. In an angular silhouette, the shoulders, waist and hips all appear to be the same width; while in a curved silhouette, the waist is significantly smaller than both the shoulders and hips. Her Body Shape gives her the clue as to which category works best for her.
Alice has a V Body shape, her shoulders are significantly wider than both her waist and hips. This puts her into the angular category.
Alice looks at the side seam of the top from the underarm down to the hem. She noted it was straight and concluded that this top has an angular silhouette which is perfect for her.
Horizontal Lines
There are two design lines that have helped Alice determine which clothes work best for her, and one of them is horizontal lines. They stop the eyes, emphasize that area and make it appear wider and shorter. She learned that her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines.
For Body Shape, Alice wants to avoid horizontal lines in her shoulder area because she doesn’t want to emphasize this area or make it appear even wider. However, she does want them in her waist/hip area because they’ll bring attention to these areas and make them appear wider, balancing out her shoulders.
For Alice’s Body Proportions, she is short between her chin/bust and long between her waist/crotch. As a result, she doesn’t want horizontal lines between her chin and bust because they’ll make this area appear shorter. On the other hand, she does want horizontal lines between her waist and crotch because they’ll make this area appear shorter.
Unlike Monica, Alice’s Body Shape and Body Proportion are in agreement with the placement of horizontal design lines: NO — to horizontal lines between her chin and bust and YES — to horizontal lines between her waist and crotch.
This top has five horizontal design lines. The first is created by the scooped neckline. This is not a great place for Alice. However, she found a solution: the top has a button placket, so she’ll unbutton the top 2 or 3 buttons to create a V-neckline.
The other 4 horizontal design lines are in the hem of the top and sleeves. A 3 inch band is sewn to the bottom creating double horizontal lines. These lines are perfect for Alice, bringing attention to this area and making it appear shorter.
Vertical Lines
The second design lines that help Alice determine which clothes work best for her are vertical design lines. Vertical lines move the eyes up and down, and make the area appear thinner and longer. Like horizontal lines, her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines.
With Alice having a V Body Shape, vertical lines in her shoulder area will make this area appear thinner. On the other hand, she wouldn’t place these design lines just in her waist and hip areas because they would make these areas appear even thinner, making her shoulders appear even wider.
For Alice’s Body Proportions, she wants vertical lines between her chin and bust to make this area appear longer. But she doesn’t want them just between her waist/crotch because they’ll make this area appear even longer.
This top has two vertical design lines: raglan sleeve and button center front placket. The raglan sleeves are diagonal lines which move one’s eyes from under the arm up to where the shoulder and neck meet. As a result, the shoulders appear thinner and the area appears longer, which is perfect for Alice. The center front button placket also works for Alice. She unbuttons the first two or three buttons creating a V-neckline (vertical line) and the neckline transitions into the placket which is another vertical line going to just below the bust.
Shape Of Design Lines
Alice learned she has a rectangle Face Shape and that her Face Shape gives her clues as to the shape of design lines like necklines. Face Shapes and design line shapes come in the same two categories: angular and curved. If one has an angular Face Shape, one should look for angular design lines. On the other hand, if one has a curved Face Shape, one should look for curved design lines.
Alice’s rectangle Face Shape falls into the angular category; she should look for angular design lines.
The neckline of this top is curved which doesn’t work for Alice. However, she is always looking for solutions and figured out that she could unbutton the first 2-3 buttons on the button placket to create a V-neckline, which is ideal for her.
What To Wear To Bed -- Pants
After finding the top, Alice looked for bottoms. She found these and loved the jogger style and loved the feel of the fabric. Most importantly they match with the top.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
The first design line Alice looked at is the silhouette. She noticed that it could work for either an angular Body Shape like hers or a curvy one. It’s made out of a knit which can conform to any hips and the elastic waistband with a tie can conform to any waist size. For her, her waist and hips appear to be the same width and she doesn’t have a butt so the circumference most likely is close to being the same. She determined that these jogger pajama pants’ silhouette will work with her body.
Horizontal Lines
Next Alice looked for the horizontal design lines. She found 3: the waistband, the top of the hem band making the bottoms a jogger and the bottom of the band. The waistband is really a non-issue because it’s hidden by the top, so she put her attention on the hem bands.
Alice knew her Body Proportions gave her the clue as to whether the horizontal lines created by the bands work for her body. Her torso and legs have the same length, which means she can easily wear an ankle pant with 2 horizontal lines in this area. She knows both Monica and Grace are limited in this area because their legs are significantly shorter than their torsos.
What To Wear To Bed -- Robe
On cool mornings, Alice likes a little extra warmth, so she looked for a robe. She liked the design detail of the white trim. She looked for robes without a lapel because they bring attention to her shoulders, making her feel like a football player.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Alice looked at the shoulders, waist and hips to determine the silhouette of this robe. She determined that they all appear to have the same width putting this robe’s silhouette in the angular category, which is perfect for her.
Horizontal Lines
Alice looked for the horizontal design lines. She found them in the tie, hem band of the sleeves and hem of the robe. All of these design lines are at her waist or below, which is perfect for both her Body Shape and Body Proportions. For her Body Shape, the focus goes to her waist and below, making these areas appear wider, balancing out her shoulders. The tie and sleeve hem are perfect for her Body Proportions because they make these areas appear shorter.
Vertical Lines
Next Alice looked for the vertical design lines. She found them in the center front opening and the white trim of the band around the center front opening. Both of these design lines are perfect for her Body Shape and Body Proportions. These vertical lines take the eye away from her shoulders, making them appear thinner and at the same time creating length in these areas.
Final Thoughts
Alice loves the magic of combining horizontal and vertical design lines and the fact that she has the knowledge to strategically place them. Before, she felt like a victim and shied away from fashion because she had no idea what to do. Now she’s having fun looking at design lines on clothes and accessories and seeing how she can manipulate them when they don’t work. Most importantly, she’s feeling confident in her abilities at work and home. She’s even thinking about projects she put on the back burner because she wasn’t sure if she could do them.
In the next blog post, Grace is sharing what bed/lounge clothes she purchased. Her idea of bed/lounge clothes are old t-shirts/sweatshirts and sweatpants. Buying bed/lounge clothes that match her body’s clues is foreign to her. She has felt more like her old self since she has started to wear clothes with design lines and colors that enhance her body. So she’s game to find out whether there are bed/lounge clothes that will fit her body. To read about what she found, go to: What To Wear To Bed — Grace.
Wear Your Greatness!!
