Updated. More of the same set of pictures. 🙂
After seeing all these, I have two observations:
- I like the belt at the waist with the knee length looks and at the hip with the full length looks. Last week, with a long skirt, I played around with the positioning of the belt and ended up liking it at high hip. I suspect we’re looking at length-balancing here, rather than a silhouette issue.
- The belt needs to be in scale with the other details of the outfit. For example, look how much better the wide belt looks with the jeans and white top, but it seems to overwhelm the dress. With the dress, the skinny belt is better. Can anybody explain why I like the skinny belt with the skirt and top, but I prefer the wide belt with the black tank and leggings?
Many thanks to eternalvoyageur for coming up with the idea for this and sending in these great pictures. Without further ado: wide belt and skinny belt, tested worn at waist and hip. (My much less thorough test of the same idea).
With so many pictures to look at, I’m simply going to ask:
What conclusions do you draw from this experiment?
Here’s mine, and this goes right along with the basic Golden Mean principle of length balancing: regardless of width, the skirted looks are better with the belt at the waist and the pants are better with the belt at the hip. Generally speaking.
Tonight I am going to be wearing a longer skirt and I may try throwing a low belt on over. With boots, since it’s now rainy and cold. (I’ll try to get someone to take a picture.)
🙂
ohhh okay. I think I’ll experiment with that idea now, thanks, though I’m thinking it’s the slant that makes all the difference.
I preferred the belt higher on the dress and skirts, but not on the pants. I’m sure it has something to do with math… 🙂
For the outfit with the white top and long pants… the skinny belt seems out of proportion. I think the wide section between the under and over shirt sets the scale that the skinny belt throws off.
On a side note… can someone tell me why I think the black skirt is the right length, but the white dress isn’t? They both seem to hit the knee at the same spot.
Hmmm-i like it best at the waist in most of them-I guess to me the belt on the hips just looks sloppy. And the skinny belt just looks silly slung on the hips-like a mistake.
Then again, maybe some of this has to do with the fact that I have a natural paunch on my tummy-which I feel is highlighted when you sling something on the hips-kind of a beer belly effect.
My gut reaction is that I like the belts at the waist and not slung on the hips at all. The skinny belt is especially flattering.
Jennifer – the reason for the difference you notice in the dress lengths has to do with the spaghetti straps. In other words, the very top of the dress doesn’t count because there isn’t enough of it there. Still, I don’t think the balance is bad. Also, the hem looks a little bit crooked, could that make a difference?
The first three I like higher up, and the last three I like the lower version. What a great experiment!
I’m reading the comments with a lot of interest. I’m thinking that the thin belt is a simple horizontali line, while the thick belt has also some vertical thing going on. Does that make sense ?
BT The same experi8ment might look different on someone with a small waist.
Also, what body shape do you think I have ? I’ve been puzzling on that for ages,
I agree about the wide belt having some vertical movement to it.
Don’t you think you have a small waist? It’s definitely not big! Until you asked, I had just thought you were an 8, like my skinny self (10 or more lbs less than I am now). But the alternative could be an I (the shape I have always wished I was).
Since the dress is empire waisted, the low-slung belt makes two competing waists. I think.
The belt at the waist does make my waist look smalle, contrary to what I expected… I thought that a horizontal line right there will just make it look wider. I used to have a smaller waist, but after the baby things changed, and now I feel that I’m more straight up and down (well at least my . But then I think I have a skewed view of myself, I can see myslef as a pear, rectangle, hourglass, and everything in between on different days. So,I need an external opinion 😉
I think this is an EXcellent EXample of the power of the shoulder detail to influence the perceived shape. I know I’ve mentioned this before (I’d ping back if I knew how:-). In my opinion, this time it’s the teal top and skirt that are the most flattering and the skinny belted view the best of all. Now I need to go through my closet and see if I have ANY tops with dropped (padded?) shoulder and V neck to see if it works for me. BTW, don’t you think we all need an EXternal opinion?
Are you saying you think she’s an X? 😉
No. However ….. upon about twentieth look, I wonder if using the ‘model stance’ would take the EX out and just leave EV?
You’ve lost me there, but I’m curious…
I think you have to consider the already existing horizontal lines in the picture, like where the shirt ends for example. If there is already a strong horizontal break, I prefer the belt to be at the same height. Otherwise the body gets divided into three parts, which I find much less flattering than the two part – hourglass proportion.
So for the dresses and monochromatic (black) outfits I prefer the belt at the waist. For the shirt and skirt/pants combinations I would say a low slung belt is more flattering.
The only exception to this rule seems to be the small belt on the teal shirt and skirt outfit. There I like the belt at the waist, but in the second picture it seems like the shirt is pulled up a little, which changes the proportions and makes all the difference I think.
For the most part, I like the belt at the waste (except for the white top with the black jeans, although that first picture is clearly Photoshopped to look wider). It does all come down to length balancing and where you want the eye to focus. The wider belt attracts more attention to wherever it’s placed, simply by virtue of it being wide and more noticeable. The skinny belt tends to reveal more (placed around the waist, it reveals the hips; placed around the hips, it reveals the waist and tummy).
Sanne – good point about where the horizontal break is.
Kari – I think you’re right about the wide belt just plain being more dramatic, thereby attracting more attention.
Thanks to both of you for your input. And I have to confess the problem with that one picture is mine, but I don’t really know how to fix it. With all the photos, I just resized them to 200 x 400; for some reason that was not the correct proportion for that one. Help?
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EV: I’ll try. The ‘model stance’ is where you place the instep of one foot into the heel of the forward foot. This puts the rear foot and leg at a slight angle to create a visual aspect narrowing the hips and thighs. It also helps reduce the tendency to see shoulders, waist, and feet as an X.
I agree with Rebecca’s first rule, but I want to add another rule to it. The wide belt always looks better at the hips, the skinny one at the waist. I think this has something to do with eternalvoyageur’s first comment. A pure horizontal line at the hips only emphasizes width, but the vertical line makes it look more proportional. It took me a minute to get why the belts worked, but eternalvoyageur definitely made it all clear!
But do the ‘rules’ work out in the outfits? If they do, you’d expect the skirted, skinny-belted, high-waisted looks and the trousered (couldn’t bring myself to say ‘pantsed’), wide-belted, low-waisted looks to work best. Those would be outfits 1, 4, 9, and 14.
So what do you guys think? Are those the best outfits, just at first impressions, without knowing that they follow rules? And what would you consider the ‘worst’ outfits? I have kind of an idea that finding out the worst outfits will help me tell which rule is most important–or maybe which rule is more important depends on whether you have more problems with heighth or width. Any thoughts on that?
Second thoughts–the ‘worst’ outfits are the ones that break both rules, like trousered, high-waisted looks that would also be high-waisted, wide-belted looks, and skirted, low-waisted looks that are also low-waisted, skinny-belted looks. Those would be outfits 2, 3, 10, and 13.
Which leads to a whole new series of questions. Do you think those are the worst outfits? And I still want to find out which rule is most important–so of the outfits that break only one, which do you think are best and worst? All of the ‘worst’ outfits show up right next to ‘bests.’ The worsts and bests that come together differ only in belt placement. Does that mean something?
The two “rules” in question:
1- belt at waist with knee-length outfit, at hip with full-length outfit
2- narrow belt at waist, wide at hip
My two-cents:
1 – I do think the four that follow both, that is 1, 4, 9 and 14, are the best.
2 – My guess is that “rule” 2 varies more according to the size and shape of the person.
3 – I guess I don’t think the outfits that break both rules are necessarily the worst. For some reason, I don’t think 13 looks bad. The ones I like the least, I think, are all the full length ones with the narrow belts.
Probably the reason 13 breaks the rules and yet doesn’t look bad is because it is low contrast. What do you think?
While I tend to think rule #1 might be the more important, it probably does vary according to the wearer. I am thinking of experimenting with the sizes of belts worn at the hip to figure out why the narrower belts are better for me.
Thanks for your contribution!