Evaluating print scale is the last step in evaluating your favorite outfit. It’s something most designers and women don’t think about.
Have you ever seen a woman wearing a big print dress and all you see is the print? You don’t see her because the print takes over the show. This woman needs to wear a print that enhances who she is so she is the focus and not the print.
On the converse side, have you ever seen a woman wearing a small print dress that gets lost? In fact you really don’t notice it or her at all. She needs to wear a larger print.
Fabric with a print scale that matches your body clues enhances you and brings you front and center, where you want to be. As a result, you become firmly grounded in confidence with all your body element clues reflected.
In this post you will learn:
- Which body elements give you clues to create your scale strategy
- How to determine your favorite outfit’s print scale
- About comparing your scale strategy to that of your outfit
Print Scale -- Body Elements
There are three body elements that give you clues to create your scale strategy:
- Color of Skin, Hair and Eyes
- Body Proportion
- Body Frame Size
I wrote a blog post for each of these Body Elements:
Then I wrote a post bringing all these elements together to create a scale strategy: Scale Strategy — Bring It Together.
The color of your skin, hair and eyes gives you a clue regarding scale by looking at your Color Contrast Profile:
- Low contrast — small scale
- Medium contrast — medium scale
- High contrast — large scale
Your body proportions give you a clue regarding scale by looking at different areas of your body. If a body area is the same as your ideal body proportion you don’t have to adjust the scale. However if the body proportion is:
- Short — decrease the scale
- Long — increase the scale
Body frame size gives you a scale clue by looking at the width of your bones. If you’re considered:
- Small boned — small scale
- Medium boned — medium scale
- Large boned — large scale
Once you understand the clues these Body Elements give you then you can combine them into one Scale Strategy. To do this you combine the clues from the color of your skin, hair and eyes and body frame size. This is your overall scale strategy. Then you adjust this scale up or down for areas that are longer or shorter than your ideal body.
To review this whole process review the above blog posts.
Print Scale -- Favorite Outfit
In my opinion this is where the fun starts — evaluating the print scale on your favorite outfit. This can be a bit subjective. I have been looking at print size for many years. I get an overall feeling. To help me make it less subjective, I looked online to find how to determine fabric scale and didn’t find anything. So I looked at a ruler and this is what I came up with as a starting point to evaluate print scale:
- Small scale — less than ½ inch
- Small/medium scale — between ½ to ¾ inch
- Medium scale — between ¾ to 1 inch
- Medium/large scale — 1 to 2 inches
- Large scale — Anything over 2 inches
This is my “back of the napkin guess-timation.” Once you figure out your sweet spot most likely you won’t refer back to this. But it’s a good place to start. In the next section you will learn how to determine your sweet spot.
You And Your Favorite Outfit
It’s now time to see if your body clues and your favorite outfit’s print scale match. Look at the size of print: small, medium or large. Review your overall scale strategy: small, medium or large. Is your scale strategy being reflected in your favorite outfit? If so now you understand the size of print which works best for you. Take a picture of it so you can use it as reference.
If not, don’t despair. It doesn’t diminish your favorite outfit. It just means you haven’t found your sweet spot. The next time you’re shopping, try on various print sizes close to your overall scale strategy. While trying them on, ask yourself about the print size. Does it make you feel light or heavy when wearing it? (You can go to Your Body Knows to learn this trick.) The one you feel the lightest in is your sweet spot.
What is your scale strategy? Did your favorite outfit match it? What did you learn about your favorite outfit and how will you shop for clothes differently? Make comments below.
The next blog post will be the last post in this series of evaluating your favorite outfit. It will review all the steps and what you can do if you can’t find or duplicate that favorite outfit in the ready to wear market. The post is called, Evaluate Your Clothes — In Review.
Wear Your Greatness!!
