Emily Neill - Closet Smarts: Flatter Your Figure with the Clothes You Already Have: Flatter Your Figure with the Clothes You Already Have

(Like Static on Nylons)

In this chapter, Id like to introduce you to some of the basic fashion myths that plague most of usconsciously or unconsciouslyand tend to keep us focused and stuck on our bodies as the source of the problem. My philosophy, as someone who has worked with people of all shapes and sizes with their own wardrobes, is that there is a way for every body to look great in clothes; its just a matter of finding the styles and cuts that really work for you. No problem! In this chapter, youll meet ten lovely ladies of all shapes and sizes who will help you visualize certain figure challenges. Throughout the rest of the book, you can follow these gals through our style journey, and they will help show you the dos and donts that most closely mirror your own figure challenges.

Let me guess. According to the experts and based on the choices of silhouette youve been given, youre a pear. Am I right? If I had a dime for every pear Ive talked out of her tree, I could retire right now. It seems inevitable with the biologies weve been given that at some point along the path of our lives, things gravitate downward and outward, settling at or around Middle Earth. They hover there, increasing or decreasing an inch or two, but sadly, they slowly and inevitably distort our formerly better-proportioned bodies into Tweedledees and Tweedledums to varying degrees.

But our middle sections are only one small (well) part of our overall silhouettes, and though the pear type may only very basically suggest that our tops are smaller than our middles, does this description really accurately capture the degree of variety that can take place on either side of our girths? Have you ever seen a fashion guide break the pear category into a typology of Bartletts, Boscs, and Anjous? Well, really, if they expect us to follow their golden rules of the fruit, they should be more specific, or at the very least give us a few more options for categorizing ourselves as we set out to readjust our wardrobes to accommodate our fruity centers.

Although plenty of fashion books have cut their teeth on quantifying a specific set of body types that should guide all fashion choicesthe apple, the pear, the athletic build, the hourglass, etc.I have found that bodies rarely fit these norms. Instead, most of us are some combination thereof, and often to such differing degrees that following a specific set of rules that always apply to the shape weve been squeezed into can be misleading and very limiting. Although its reassuring to believe that the fashion industry knows whats out there in terms of our body shapes, and that it in fact designs for, or at the very least knows how to accommodate, these shapes, the reality isnt that simple. What designing for this list of silhouettes really does is to establish norms that we must all approximate.

Though I dont plan to spend this book exploding myths, I think there is a part of each of us that already knows this spiel from experience: On a very basic level, we just dont often see ourselves (i.e. our body shapes) represented anywhere in a realistic way where clothing is advertised or pictured.

Where we do see closer approximations of ourselves are in the special sections of fashion exposs, where suddenly the industry decides it has a conscience and maybe it should pretend to address the lions share of real bodies that are actually trying to follow its designs and trends. Sadly, even within these special segments, where the average woman is apparently represented and her figure problems addressed, most of us are left with only a vague idea of where we fit into a continuum that, at best, completely oversimplifies the reality of our many shapes. At worst, this kind of typing, even as it claims to represent us, only sets us up to feel inadequate all over again as we squeeze ourselves into these cookie-cutter silhouettes that dont really describe us individually at all.

Of course, its convenient to use these prototypes: How would anyone, in a three-page fashion spread, truly address the real variety of bodies that populate their readership? But when this limited dogma is used everywhere, in every outlet where women may search to find figure solutions, it gives the impression that these types are indeed real and true, and the reality of their convenience as a shorthand device slips out of our awareness.