Learning what to wear for her body type has helped Sam understand what design lines and colors work for her body. She’s never been a clothes person so knowing the latest fashion trends never interested her. Clothes were only there for utility to cover her body.
Sam now understands clothes can change how she feels. She understands the importance of wearing the right clothes for her body so she can feel like she can conquer her world. Over the last several years her confidence in herself and abilities has increased helping her to pursue her passion of being the architect on sustainable mixed use properties. In fact, she’s working with a developer who is doing just that.
Sam looked in her closet and saw she needed to replace old outfits with ones that work for her body. Because of the new project she’s working on, she doesn’t have time to go out shopping. So she goes on macys.com. She learns how to determine which clothes will work for her by looking in the description and looking at the design lines close-up.
Keep reading to learn about one of the outfits she picked that has design lines and colors that work for her body.
Sam’s Body Elements
As a review, these are Sam’s Body Element clues:
- Body Shape — H (Body Shape — The Girls)
- Angular clothes silhouette
- Can place horizontal and vertical lines almost anywhere when considering Body Shape
- Face Shape — Oval (Face Shape — The Girls)
- Curved design lines, prints and accessories
- Color Skin, Hair, Eyes — High Color Contrast (Color Skin, Hair & Eyes — The Girls)
- Favorite Colors — Blue, Pink (red/violet), Green
- Color Combinations (other colors) —
- Triadic — Blue
- Triadic or Complementary — Pink
- Complementary — Green
- Color Combinations (relative lightness and darkness) — High contrast
- First Scale Clue — Large
- Body Proportions — Short between chin/bust, long between waist/crotch (Body Proportions — The Girls)
- Horizontal lines — Don’t place them between her chin/bust but do place them between her waist/crotch
- Vertical lines — Limit the amount between her waist/crotch but do place them between her chin/bust
- 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 — Medium/Large (Scale Strategy — The Girls)
- Decrease it to medium between her chin/bust
- Increase it to large between her waist/crotch
Dress For Body Type -- Top
One of Sam’s favorite colors is pink. She also likes Calvin Klein clothes. They seem to fit her body well. When she saw this top she thought it would work for her. It’s something she could wear on the job site and meeting with clients, subs and suppliers.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Sam learned the silhouette of an outfit is important because clothes should follow her body lines. There are two categories of silhouettes: angular and curved. A silhouette is angular when the shoulders, waist and hips appear to be the same width. On the other hand, a silhouette is curved when the waist appears smaller than both the shoulders and hips. Her Body Shape gives her clues as to which category to look for. She has an H Body Shape where her shoulders, waist and hips appear to be the same width so her best silhouette is an angular one.
Sam looks at the shoulders and waist. She saw the sleeve was a capped sleeve. Then she looked from under the arm to the hem. She thought the peplum looked curvy making it a possible curvy silhouette. To figure out the silhouette, she looked close at the front and back pictures. She found there was a zipper that started and the bottom of her neck to just below her shoulders. There wasn’t an opening in the peplum so the fabric needed to be a knit to get the top on. She thought this top was a possibility and would look at the other design lines.
Horizontal Lines
Sam learned the next design line to look for are horizontal lines. They stop the eye, emphasize the area and make it appear shorter and wider. Her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines.
Sam has an H Body Shape so she doesn’t need to worry about horizontal lines for her Body Shape. On the other hand, she needs to be strategic about placing them for her Body Proportions. She’s short between her chin/bust and long between her waist/crotch. Her clues tell her to avoid them between her chin/bust and place them between her waist/crotch.
Sam searched for the horizontal lines in the top by starting at the top and following where her eyes stop. They stopped at the top of the peplum and the bottom. The top appears to stop at the waist and the bottom at mid hip. These horizontal lines work well for Sam because it makes the area between her waist and crotch appear shorter creating better balance.
Vertical Lines
Sam learned that vertical lines are also important design lines to look for because they move the eye up and down along with making the area appear thinner and longer. Her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines.
For Sam’s Body Shape, she learned she can place them anywhere. But for her Body Proportions she needs to be concerned about their placement. She wants them between her chin/waist because she’s short in this area. But she wants to avoid them between her waist/crotch because vertical lines will make this area appear even longer.
Sam looks for vertical lines by seeing where her eye moves down. She found the V-neck line creates a vertical line and then the eye moves down to the top of the peplum because the front crosses over at the point of the V-neck. She also saw many gathered fold lines radiating up from the peplum. These also create vertical lines.
Sam determined these vertical design lines work well for her Body Proportions. They make the area between her chin/bust appear longer. The area between her bust/waist is equal to a perfectly proportioned body at her height. This means she can easily wear vertical design lines in this area. All in all the vertical line placement in this top is perfect for her.
Shape Of Design Lines
The next design lines Sam looked at are design line shapes. Design line shapes come in two categories: angular and curved. Angular design line shapes have angles and straight lines. On the other hand, curve design line shapes are all about curves and circles. Her Face Shape gives her clues as to which category she should look for.
Sam has an oval Face Shape which means she should look for curved design lines. The only design line with a shape is the V-neck. Its shape is angular which isn’t perfect for Sam. She loved many things about this top so she thought she could make sure every other design line is perfect for her. One area she could do that is in her accessories: shoes, necklace and earrings.
Dress For Body Type -- Pants
Sam loves the look and feel of linen pants. It’s a great fabric for hot summer days. She wanted one that fit like a trouser. She saw several on macys.com but liked this pair the best. The one thing she wasn’t sure about is the length. The description said “long design” but she’s not sure what that meant. She thought she would get a shoe with a little height and if the pants are still too long then she would get them hemmed to be the right length for her.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Because Sam has an H Body Shape she looked for pants with an angular silhouette. She knows that’s not a hard thing to find. In fact, most pant silhouettes are angular. If they’re not, then the description or tag would say curvy fit.
Sam looked in the description and it didn’t say anything about curvy fit. So she knows the silhouette is angular, perfect for her body.
Horizontal Lines
Sam then looked for horizontal design lines on the trousers. She saw four: Top of waistband, bottom of waistband, top of the welt pockets and bottom of the welt pocket. The description said the pants are high waisted. Since she’s long between her waist/crotch she knows they will most likely hit her around her belly button. This is perfect for her because this area will appear shorter. The welt pockets will do the same thing.
Sam knew these horizontal lines would be hidden by the top. However she thought she most likely would be wearing these pants with other blouses/tops this summer and the horizontal lines would work for her if she tucked in her blouse/top.
Vertical Lines
Next Sam looked for vertical design lines on the trousers. She found two: center front seam line on all pants and the fold crease line down each front and back leg. She knew the center front seam line which is on all pants can be problematic for her because it will make this area appear longer. However, with her being long in this area causing waistband to hit her around her belly button and the horizontal lines created by the welt pockets the horizontal line cancels out the vertical one.
The vertical lines created by the crease lines in the legs doesn’t affect her Body Proportions because her torso and legs are approximately the same length. With the balance of horizontal and vertical lines these pants work for Sam.
Dress For Body Type -- Shoes
Sam looked for lug sole loafers to give her a little height without wearing heels. She doesn’t wear heels to work because she doesn’t feel comfortable wearing them to a job site and climbing ladders. With the lug sole plus the heel the actual height is 1 inch which is perfect for her.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Shape Of Design Lines
With her Face Shape being oval, Sam looks for shoes with a round toe. This year on the market she saw a lot of square and pointed toe shoes. Thankfully she found these. By looking at the pictures provided and the description she saw that these loafers have a rounded toe.
Scale
Another aspect of design lines Sam never knew about was the scale of shoes. Over the last several years she found out it’s important. If the shoes had too small a scale they can get lost and on the other side if they’re too large they take over the look.
By combining the clue from the color of her Skin, Hair and Eye along with her Body Frame Size clue, Sam found out her overall scale is medium/large. She would decrease the scale to medium in areas her Body Proportion is short and increase it to large in areas where her Body Proportions are large. Because the area between her knees/floor, the scale of her shoes should remain at medium/large.
The scale of these shoes is medium/large, perfect for Sam.
Dress For Body Type -- Necklace
Sam next looked for a necklace to go with the outfit. She looked for pendants to give her length and had the right shape for her Face Shape. She also made sure the scale of the pendant was perfect for her.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Vertical Lines
The chain of the pendant creates vertical lines. This is one of the reasons Sam wears pendant necklaces. In fact most of her life she has gravitated toward necklaces with pendants, and now she knows why.
Because the distance between her chin/bust is short compared to a well proportioned body at her height, Sam body’s clues say to wear vertical lines in this area to make it appear longer. Coupled with the neckline of the top this area appears longer and in better balance with the rest of her body.
Shape Of Design Lines
Because she has an oval Face Shape, Sam looks for a pendant which has curves. She looked at a lot of pendants and loved the round shape and the thought of the tree of life. The round shape works perfect for her Face Shape.
Scale
Another aspect of the pendant is its overall scale. Sam’s overall scale strategy is medium/large. However, because she’s short between her chin/bust, she decreases the scale of prints and accessories in that area to medium.
Many pendants she sees in retail seem to have small or medium/small scale. Sam was happy to find this one which was a little over an inch. When she put it on, it worked perfectly for her.
Dress For Body Type -- Earrings
Sam looked for hoop earrings to go with the necklace. She wanted the necklace to be the star of the show and the earrings to be the supporting cast. She liked the visual weight of them along with their medium size.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Shape Of Design Lines
Sam looked for hoop earrings because by nature they have a curved shape matching her Face Shape clues. These Ralph Lauren hoop earrings are perfect for her.
Final Thoughts
Several years ago Sam would have dreaded this process of finding clothes online. Before she understood what to wear for my body type, she would buy a lot of clothes and then return most of them. This process has helped her save time and money along with decreasing aggravation. Most importantly by knowing what clothes work for her body and being able to identify design lines and color on outfits, every morning she feels like she can conquer her world. With this confidence she’s pursuing passions she never thought she would do.
Monica is going on a retreat with other social media marketers she met at a recent social media event, to figure out how to use AI to help their clients in this new world. More specifically they’re going to discuss how to use all of AI’s tools to get better information. She needed a few clothes for this three day trip but didn’t have time to shop in the store so she went to Macys.com. To find out how she dresses for her body type go to: What To Wear For My Body Type — Monica.
Wear Your Greatness!!
