013. Proportions, please (plus some exciting news!)
You think you're alone in having a "disproportionate body" -- math says you're not.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled style education blog to announce that Tess St. Pierre is in the media! As referenced over the last few weeks, the highly anticipated profile on Tess, The Style Servant is officially live on the KawarthaNOW website. Take a moment to read & share with the people you like :)
Carrying on…
“Dressing well is a form of good manners.”
Tom Ford said that, and I’d say he knows a thing or two about fashion.
When people attempt dressing well but the fit falls flat, it’s not always the garment that’s at fault. Often times, it’s the individual’s lack of knowledge and understanding of their proportions — let alone the concept of proportions, generally speaking…
All things influence art (even math)
Most of you, I’m sure, have heard of the Rule of Thirds — usually referenced in photography. It looks something like this:
Similar, but not the same as this popular perspective, is what’s known as The Golden Ratio, conceptualized by mathematical mastermind Leonardo Fibonacci (1170-1250).
In the context of styling, The Golden Ratio utilizes the same rule of thirds method to illustrate balance and symmetry in an outfit, with the added bonus of extreme precision. Where the Rule of Thirds is a general outline, The Golden Ratio uses the number 1.618 as a consistent measure of aesthetically pleasing compositions. It’s often regarded as “‘nature’s proportion’ because it can be found in many natural phenomena, such as seashells and flower petals.”
You may recognize The Golden Ratio template chart from your high school art class days…
…or from your attempts to create an outfit with visually interesting proportions 👇🏼
Notice how the outfits that are merely “cut” in 1/2 (half) are much less visually appealing than those that are “cut” in 1/3 or 2/3 (thirds)?
This is because when we look at anything our minds need to be visually stimulated by something to solve.
If you dress simply in halves, your brain — and everyone else’s brain — is able to immediately figure out the equation: 1 +1 = 2.
By dressing in thirds, you’re making a brain work to understand the intrigue: 1 + 2 = 3.
This makes us 1) look longer and 2) pay more attention, increasing our desire to not just work to understand the outfit but the person wearing it.
The stylist’s head count — a holistic dressing method
This is a lot to take in, I get it. And frankly, it’s a lot of math.
So let’s shift to simply measuring (because there is a difference).
Nearly as ancient as Fibonacci’s Golden Ratio is the idea that you can gather an individual’s body proportions through the measurement of the head alone. More interesting still is the fact that the average body is made up of eight head lengths. See below 👇🏼
While universally most people’s total body length is comprised of eight heads, it is the placement of those heads within key areas of the body that make up an individual’s unique proportions.
Key areas being:
👉🏼 The waist
👉🏼 The rise
👉🏼 The legs
How many head lengths you have in each of these areas determine fundamental dressing need-to-knows about the length of each of these things.
If you don’t know whether you’re short or long-waisted, for example, how can you possibly buy the right cut of jeans to fit your unique body?
Okay so there is a little math involved, but well worth it.
🗝️The takeaway here is that by understanding where your waist, rise, and legs fall in proportion to the rest of your body, you’re able to dress according to The Golden Rule and create that visual hook for every onlooker.
Lusting after “the perfect body”
Working retail for several years now, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard customers — particularly women — say to me:
“I’m hard to dress, I don’t have an hourglass figure.”
To which I reply:
“Did you know that rectangle and apple body shapes are among the most common in women?”
We only think hourglass is common because that’s what mainstream media presents to us constantly, even in plus size ads.
Fact of the matter is, everybody has body fat. And everybody holds that fat in different areas. Natural fat and bone density are two significant contributing factors to your overall shape and proportions combined.
Having a “non-standard” silhouette doesn’t make you hard to dress, it just means we need to be more thoughtful about how to accentuate your best features.
Which leads me to my next point…
How our bodies influence our style choices
Two weeks ago, I took the deep dive into explaining each of the core style types, highlighting their defining characteristics.
What I didn’t mention then, but will introduce now is this:
Wear whatever you want, but know that each style type has a body type that naturally corresponds to it that makes it flourish.
Quick case-in-point:
One paramount characteristic of the 🌹Romantic🌹 style type is that she showcases a lot of curves — both through her body shape and through garments themselves.
So if you’re a curvy individual, your body will thank you for sporting more fitted garments, flowing lines and patterns, and rich, saturated colours. The Concept Wardrobe writes more about this, in a nutshell saying the “ideal” silhouette for a Romantic is Oval because of its medium vertical body line (somewhere between apple and pear shape).
Now what happens if you are a curvy gal but the Romantic style is not your thing.
NBD! Like I’d mentioned in this article, I believe we all subscribe to at least two core style types, and I don’t believe in the rules so rigidly that we can’t break out of them and tailor them to your unique style.
In fact, it’s like I said a few weeks ago now:
“When you know the rules about style, that’s exactly when you’re educated enough to break them.”
To be continued…
💌, Tess