Does This Make Me Look Fat?
At one time or another we’ve all asked the question. Does this make me look fat? It might.
Is it:
1) The wrong silhouette, or shapeless altogether?
2) Too small?
3) Put together in such a way that it creates a focal point where you would rather not have one? Like the wannabe glamourous young lady in black pants and black sweater, swath of white lace encircling her hips & derriere?
(A friend of mine used one of these long shirts with the lace hem to create a much more flattering look: matching the lace to the color of her skirt, she created the effect of a coordinating lace belt, and wore a contrasting top over.)
If creating a slimmer appearance is your foremost fashion concern, the book Does This Make Me Look Fat?: The Definitive Rules for Dressing Thin for Every Height, Size, and Shape
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Identifying Your Values
Color values, that is. What you value is clearly important in terms of what you wear, but not the topic of this post.
Value = the relative lightness or darkness of a color
In my watercolor class, we talk alot about value. In fact, our instructor hammers us about getting the values right, while allowing just about any approximation of hue. If one of us were to decide to make a certain shape lighter or darker than it is in the reference photo, the entire picture would have to adjust right along with it, keeping the mathematical relationships between color values the same.
You can do the same in your wardrobe, using the gray scale & value finder or just “close enough” visually.
How to use the tool:
- place the tool against the surface to be matched so that the color appears in the keyhole
- try different keyholes until you identify the one that is the same degree of lightness or darkness
You have now identified the color value, designated by the number on the corresponding gray!
To assemble an harmonious ensemble:
- identify the values present in your personal coloring: hair, skin, and eyes
- repeat those exact values in your ensemble
- OR use two of the three
- OR calculate the difference between them and use colors with the same difference in value
- throw in an accent of black and/or white to add drama
Anyway, this inexpensive tool, which can be purchased here through Amazon or at your local art supply store, is going to live on my dresser for the next month or so, as I move into planning my fall wardrobe.
Value is about the most noticeable element of one’s personal appearance. How do incorporate the concept of color value into your wardrobe planning?
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The Triumph of Individual Style
If you were to own only one “what (not) to wear” book, this is the one to buy! It is a college art text. Formerly no less than $68, Amazon now has sells it for quite a bit less
Book Description
This text aims to teach the reader how to assess her body type and then choose clothing that looks good on her. The process involves what the authors call an individual’s “design pattern.” This pattern is made up of lines, shapes, proportions, body particulars, scale, colors, and textures. How they fit together in harmony and how an individual infuses them with her innate creativity is what authors call “style.”Text Features:1.Principles of art as they apply to understanding and enhancing the female body
2.Art reproductions from museums such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Musee du Louvre, illustrating women’s body forms and surface features
3.Hundreds of line drawings suggest contemporary wardrobe strategies
4.Two color wheels and pages of charts for skin, eye, and hair color.
5. Provides color swatches to create a color wheel
Personally, after studying this book, I have found that there is a way to figure out any “what-to-wear” problem “from scratch”, providing freedom from the legalism of following somebody else’s list of “shoulds” and “how-tos”.
If you’ve been considering taking the plunge, now could be the time! (My copy was a birthday gift from my hero.)
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Leopard Print Velvet Blazer
I just wanted to show you Boden’s Velvet Blazer
. It comes in great colors for Fall 2010: berry, black, purple, cyan, pewter, and leopard print. The price? $98, which is what I would expect to find an item like this priced for at a moderately priced store. Generally, you can find a link to Boden USA in my sidebar, offering additional savings.
According to Harper’s, camel will be the new color for fall. Of course, many of us have always believed camel, and leopard print, to be “classics”. Good for us; when a classic we like is declared the “in” thing, that is the time to buy! At any rate, one thing I like about many animal prints is the mixing of cool and warm colors (although I think I would have used a lipstick red scarf rather than the dusty purple, if I were styling the outfit pictured).
How about you: will you be adopting camel this fall, either in a leopard print or straight up?
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The Best Color for a Suit or Jacket
Here’s a tip borrowed from the guys: If you are going to buy a blazer this fall, or a sweater or a vest, your best color option is — drumroll please — your haircolor. Picture it. Your hair and your jacket working together to form a frame to flatter your face, making it the focal point of your outfit.
(Since I am not likely to find a silver suit, I have bought two brown tweed suits - one with trousers, one with a skirt -to wear this fall.)
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Adapting Black and White to Your Coloring
Wearing black is perhaps the single most controversial topic in the fashion blogosphere. Wearing white is not quite as heated a topic, but still touchy in some ways. According to conventional color wisdom, with my softer personal coloring I should shun both black and white. But that is not the full story.
Recently I tried on a black and white and color print. Alone, each of the colors would have been too vivid for me. Overwhelming. But mixed, they worked. Why is that? Here’s my suggestion:
- if your personal coloring is intense, wear black or white alone or mixed in a large, bold print.
- if your personal coloring is very soft, wear black and white mixed so tightly as to almost appear gray. Tweed is an example of this.
- wherever your personal coloring falls on the continuum between soft and intense, adapt the size and proportion of black and white to match. In addition to tweeds, I can wear small prints like gingham or polka dots.
- accent with a flattering color: frosty pink for me, bright red for one with bold coloring, teal for one with blue eyes.
Do you have to adapt to wear black with your coloring?
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Brainstorming on Fitting Trousers
Stephanie asks:
I don’t have a need for work slacks, but I would like some slacks for church. Any tips on fit? I have never worn them. I’m especially thrown by the noticeable lack of back pockets, and I just don’t know what is flattering. I see so many women wearing slacks that fit poorly…Don’t know how to not make that mistake. Right now, if I don’t wear a skirt to church, I wear dark wash jeans, but I’d like to expand my options.
Well, I’ll tell you a couple of things that are not flattering:
- form-fitting, skin-color pants
- visible pocket outlines
- jiggle
Defining what works is a bit more challenging. Let’s face it: women’s bodies are complicated.
Assuming we (at the bottom of the fashion food chain) lack the means, and/or skills, to do custom, here’s brainstorming on trouser fit:
- If your waist and hip measurements correspond to different sizes, go with the larger size and get alterations if necessary. (This is different from the way stretch jeans are normally fit these days.)
- Lining adds to a smooth look. Alternatively, wear magic underwear.
- The benefit of a mid-rise style with a waistband construction is breaking up the area visually. Recently I’ve seen styles with pocket flaps; same idea.
I suspect different styles flatter different figure types. For me, the fast diagonal line created by the slash front pocket is like magic; it almost transforms my figure eight silhouette into a V!
I’d love to hear what works for others.
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Winter Wear to Work
When Duchesse mentioned cashmere sweaters + wool trousers as her winter go-to formula (a formula I love!), the concept lodged in my mind, in the vicinity of a collection of thoughts about architects, engineers, and other technical professionals. Professions Mella DP describes as follows:
That often means having to demonstrate credibility in the executive conference room and on the plant floor on the same day. Dressing in a way that works for both situations is tricky. It’s easier for the guys - most men can wear chinos and a polo shirt and and sturdy shoes and look decent and functional (if a little dull). Most women in a similar outfit would look like an Applebees hostess.
But most women dressed in a cashmere sweater and wool trousers would look conventional and context-appropriate, Mella DP’s words, my opinion. (Hey, I realize not everyone can wear wool. I figure if you’re reading this, you’re smart enough to figure out a wool alternative that works for you. If that’s something you’d like to discuss, we certainly can.) Perhaps it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, any ensemble worn in a business context should be decipherable by both men and women. Much of what is popular for women is simply not understood by the men they work with.
Since we haven’t had any illustrations around here for a long time:
(Ugh! Now I remember why we haven’t had illustrations for so long! This took me all afternoon!)
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Establishing Credibility Visually
Lately I’ve been reading, researching, and meditating on alot of detail concerning appearance and perception. I admit it, alot of these thoughts initiate from comments to me; comments that show that they are unable to see my interior reality. (Perhaps this feeling that nobody gets me is indicative of a mid-life crisis? lol)
At any rate, while there is alot of information here on the blog already, there is still TONS I haven’t figured out. But I’m feeling ambitious, so I’m delving into researching the connection between certain visual elements and specific perceptions. Leave a comment if you have a clue. And I thought I’d begin with something relevant to career women, because I love them too!
Credibility: attitude toward a source of communication held at a particular time by a message receiver. It consists primarily of expertise, trustworthiness, and good will. (Dynamics of Persuasion)
Another source put it slightly differently: Expertise, Trustworthiness, Similarity, and Physical Attractiveness (I suppose the author of a textbook may find physical attractiveness to be too loaded a topic to address it).
Bernie Burson, Image Consultant, in her sidebar on Psychological Dressing, says:
When you receive your personal color palette, you learn that wearing your eye-related color makes you appear sincere and honest and wearing skin tones makes you seem friendly and approachable.
So, if credibility is a three-legged stool consisting of expertise, trustworthiness, and good will; wearing my recommended simple color palette (based on your own coloring) will get you two legs (and physical attractiveness as a bonus). Not enough. Establishing expertise, I suspect, is done through visual cues specific to the industry. Even if the industry is raising children.
What are the visual cues to expertise in your field?
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Unity and Variety
In studying my daughter’s Art Appreciation text (Prebles’ Artforms (9th Edition) (MyArtKit Series)
They are:
- unity and variety
- balance
- emphasis and subordination
- directional forces
- contrast
- repetition and rhythm
- scale and proportion
And, since this is the crazy way I normally think, I immediately wondered if the artists, or whoever it was, who “discovered” these principles were thinking about them as they relate to the nature of God. For example, in number 3, emphasis and subordination, Christ is, in all of life, both the One emphasized and the One who subordinated Himself to the Father.
But, on to something more practical that we can apply to our wardrobes today: Unity and Variety (or unity and diversity, from which we get our word University), also a description of the Trinity. Wearing a coat the color of your hair can create unity, but without some variety it will not be a pleasing composition. Think little old lady: beige coat, beige skin, beige hair.
