Dressing for your body type has helped Veronica understand how to dress for her Body Proportions. Her torso is significantly shorter than her legs. Most of her life she’s felt out of balance and self conscious about her longer than normal legs. Growing up she was always teased about her ‘daddy long legs’. Now she understands how to combine horizontal and vertical lines to create balance.
Veronica and her husband are looking forward to spending the day wine tasting with Sam, Monica, Alice and Grace, and their husbands. They haven’t spent any time with each other this summer. She’s been busy at work and didn’t have time to go shopping for an outfit, so she went online to find one.
If your legs are significantly longer than your torso and you want to understand the magical combination of horizontal and vertical lines, keep reading.
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
Dressing For Your Body Type -- Top
Veronica started her search for an outfit by looking for a top. She has found it can be difficult to find the right combination of design lines for both her Body Shape and Body Proportions with tops. She recently purchased a sleeveless version of this top and loved it. So she put it on the short list. After looking for a while she chose this one because it ticked all the design line boxes. She also loved how she felt in the sleeveless version.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Veronica learned an important design line is the silhouette. An outfit’s silhouette is determined by the difference between the shoulder/waist, waist/hips and hips/shoulders. They’re two categories of silhouettes, including angular and curved. An outfit has an angular silhouette when the shoulders, waist and hips appear to be the same width. On the other hand, an outfit has a curved silhouette when the waist appears to be significantly smaller than both the shoulders and hips. Her Body Shape gives her clues as to which category of silhouette to wear.
Veronica has an X Body Shape, where her waist is significantly smaller than both her shoulders and hips which appear to be the same width. The waistline shape also appears to be angular. This means that she should wear clothes with a curved silhouette.
Veronica determined that this blouse has a curved silhouette and is perfect for her Body Shape clues.
Horizontal Lines
Veronica learned that the placement of horizontal lines is critical in helping her to feel balanced. Horizontal lines top the eye, emphasize the area and make it appear wider and shorter. Her Body Shape and Body Proportions give her clues as to the placement of these design lines. Because she has an X Body Shape and doesn’t have one area wider than the other, she can place horizontal lines anywhere.
However, she needs to be mindful about the placement of horizontal lines for her Body Proportions. Veronica is short between her bust/waist and waist/crotch. She is long between her crotch/knees and knees/floor. As a result, her torso is significantly shorter than her legs. When placing horizontal lines she wants to avoid them as much as she can in her torso area and place them in her legs area.
This blouse has two horizontal lines: sleeve hem and top hem. Both hit Veronica in her upper thigh area perfect for her Body Proportions clues.
Vertical Lines
The next design line Veronica looks at are ones that have a vertical dimension. Vertical lines move the eye up and down, and make the area appear thinner and longer. Her Body Shape and Body Proportions gives her clues as to the placement of these design lines. As with horizontal design lines, she can place vertical ones anywhere because she doesn’t have one area wider than another.
For her Body Proportions, Veronica learned that she needs to be just as strategic with vertical lines as with horizontal ones. She wants them to be in her torso area to help this area appear longer. On the other hand she wants to avoid them in her leg area.
This top has several vertical design lines: the center front opening and diagonal design lines which help create the curved silhouette. Both of these vertical design lines work to help her torso appear longer, perfect for her Body Proportion clues.
Design Lines Shape
The last design line detail Veronica looked at on the blouse is design line shape. Many times design lines create different types of shapes that fall into two categories: angular or curved. The category describes the design line shape: angular design lines have angles and curved ones are curved. Her Face Shape gives her the clue to which category works best for her.
Veronica has a heart Face Shape which falls into the curved category. This means she wants design detail in an outfit: collar, pockets, cuffs, plackets, design seams to be curved.
She looked at the design line shapes in the blouse and found the collar, cuffs and diagonal design lines creating the curved silhouette are all angular. Not ideal for her Face Shape. However, she learned that this isn’t a deal breaker because the critical design lines: silhouette, horizontal lines and vertical lines all work. She will make sure the design lines created by her accessories are perfect for her Face Shape clue.
Dressing For Your Body Type -- Pants
Veronica next looked for pants. She first looked for pants with a curvy silhouette but didn’t see anything she liked with the right horizontal and vertical lines for her Body Proportions clues. She remembered pants made out of ponte fabric are arriving at stores for fall. She can buy it for her waist and the fabric stretches enough to easily accommodate her hips. She loved this pair of ankle pants by Michael Kors.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Silhouette
Veronica found that pants made out of a ponte fabric works great for her curvy silhouette. It’s a heavy knit that can easily mold to her body. She buys for her waist and the fabric easily fits around her hips. She likes the style of this Michael Kors pants which are made out of a ponte fabric which magically fit her curved shape silhouette.
Horizontal Lines
Veronica looked for ankle pants because they create a horizontal line just above her ankles. This helps make her legs appear shorter, creating better balance with her torso. Because her legs are long, ankle pants always hit her several inches above her ankles. These pants work well for her Body Proportions clues.
Dressing For Your Body Type -- Shoes
Veronica looked at both booties and shoes for this outfit. She found herself leaning toward booties. She really liked the look of these booties and thought they would be a great addition to her fall wardrobe.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Horizontal Lines
One of the reasons Veronica loves booties is because they add horizontal lines above her ankles. This one has another horizontal line created by the straps. Great for her Body Proportions and adds a great design line detail.
Shape Of Design Lines
These booties have a curved toe and the buckle on the strap is curved. Both match Veronica’s Face Shape clue.
Dressing For Your Body Type -- Necklace
Veronica looked for a necklace that matched her Body Proportions and Face Shape clues. She wanted the necklace to give her torso added length along with off setting the wrong design line shape on the blouse. This necklace would do both.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Vertical Lines
The chain of this necklace is 30 inches long which creates a vertical line from Veronica’s shoulders to her waist. As a result it will add length to her short torso perfect for her Body Shape clue.
Shape Of Design Lines
The pendant on this necklace is made up of two circles and a knot hooking them together. All three components create curved design lines that are perfect for Veronica’s Face Shape clues.
Dressing For Your Body Type -- Earrings
The last piece of the outfit are earrings. Veronica wanted them to be subtle but add extra texture. She loves the simplicity of hoop earrings with the added texture on the gold metal.
Design Line & Color Analysis
Shape Of Design Lines
These hoop earrings are curved which matches Veronica’s Face Shape clue.
Final Thoughts
By learning that dressing for your body type, Veronica has cracked the code to creating balance between her short torso and long legs. The key is to strategically place horizontal and vertical lines. Now that she’s cracked the code her confidence in herself and abilities has skyrocketed. She’s doing things she only dreamt of doing but never thought it would become reality.
Wear Your Greatness!!
