I took a poll on Instagram last week and the results told me something I already know – many women struggle when it comes to dressing for their body shape. They’re unsure of which cuts and styles suit their shape and how to wear them to look their best.

And why is this so important? Because dressing for your body shape is key to looking great. Here’s why…

REASON #1

Dressing for your body shape helps create visual balance and harmony. Visual balance and harmony in turn, pleases the eye. When something is pleasing to the eye, well, you look good. That in itself is reason enough. But there’s more.

REASON #2

Once you know how to dress for your shape, you know how to play up your assets and downplay the areas of your body that you don’t necessarily want to draw attention to. You know how to highlight certain body parts and deemphasize others, and you know how to fool the eye into believing that you are the epitome of proportion and balance.

REASON #3

Knowing how to dress for your shape saves you time and money. Once you know which cuts and styles suit your shape, you know which items to avoid when shopping. You no longer spend money buying things that don’t flatter you and that sit in your closet unworn. As a result, your closet is only stocked with items perfectly suited to you.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY…

You could have the most fabulous outfit, but if it doesn’t suit your body shape, it’ll never look quite right. Nuff said.

So how do you determine your body shape? One way is to find a body shape calculator online, pop in your measurements and get your result. I call that the Mathematical Approach.

However, if you’d like a super easy method for determining your body shape, one that doesn’t use a measuring tape, you can use what I like to call the Visual Approach. Here’s how you do it…

THE VISUAL APPROACH

Step 1: To establish your body shape visually, stand in front of a full length mirror. If you don’t have one, at the very least, you need to be able to see from your shoulders to your hips.

Step 2: Wearing nothing but your undergarments or tight yoga or workout wear, take a look at the width of your shoulders, bust, waist and hips.

Step 3: Assess these body parts in relation to each other and note which might seem overly wide or too narrow – proportionately speaking.

Step 4: Compare your shape to the body shapes in the image below to see which yours most resembles.

Something to keep in mind…

Some women are very obviously shaped a certain way and can easily determine their body shape visually. They can see where they’re unbalanced or where their proportions are off. Others? Not so much. If you find yourself in the ‘not so much’ category, try using an online calculator to determine your results.

Next steps…

Once you know how to determine your body shape, it’s time to learn how to dress for it. In my next post, I’ll be covering just that. Don’t want to wait? Why not book a personalized Skype Session with me where I can show you exactly how to dress for your particular shape, which cuts and styles to wear, how to wear them and which to avoid. All from the comfort of your own home. CLICK HERE to book now.