DeCarrington Dressing Guide Part Two
As promised, it’s part two of the DCDG! Want to look more like an elegant lady and less like a dumpster fire? Then read on.
In part one, I talked about some basics between male and female shapes, which I’m going to go into a bit more detail on today.
Take a look at these two below. I’ve used ‘lines’ on a ‘computer’ to draw a line down from where the edge of the shoulder would be, more or less in line with the clavicle. (Apologies for the shutterstockness, I am too poor to spend money on stockphotos for the purpose like this)
As we can see, on the male figure there is a clear space between the line and the hips, whilst the wider hips of the female character do not have this. What we need to do is either make the shoulders appear smaller, or the hips bigger, or ideally, both. So lets look at options.
Making shoulders appear smaller.
If we think of the male torso as being an “inverted v” shape, this is what leads to top heaviness in looks i.e. too much going on up top, not enough below the waist (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID) So to neutralise, this, we use the opposite shape with clothes. That is, less towards the shoulders, and more towards the waist and below.
Of course I don’t mean literally, or we’d end up looking like this:
BACK ON TRACK
Remember that bit from part one about dark colours receding? Well, that’s what we’re going to use here. Using dark colours on the top half will create the illusion of them being smaller, especially if you are wearing a lighter coloured skirt for example. One thing I do often is to wear a black skinny jacket, to hide arms and shrink my top half.
Certain necklines will work better to minimise chunky shoulders- V necks make the torso appear longer, as do most plunging necklines. Halter tops are great too (90s revival is in at the moment) and scoop necks soften necklines. Just make sure you shave your chest though!
There are definitely shapes to avoid though- bardot tops are everywhere at the moment, and sadly these are a no no if you have broad shoulders, the visible skin will make your shoulders look broad. Same with wide boat necks. Strapless dresses will also make you look broad, which can make finding prom dresses a pain! (You can hide them with a bolero or shrug though.)
Narrow lapels and collars
Ruffled/detailed/embellished shoulders
Strapless dress? Use a bolero to hide them shoulders.
Making the hips appear wider.
Once, again we can use optical illusions to alter our silhouettes. Have you heard that a short person should never wear horizontal stripes? Well, that’s cos the’ll make things appear wider, which is ideal for us. Horizontal striped skirts have this effect. Perfect!
Certain skirt shapes will be better too, skirts with a bit of volume are much easier to style then pencil skirts. This is another article in itself!
There is another weapon though:
To push the shoulder to hip ratio to a slightly more workable one, what you can do is use padding. I usually wear padded boyshorts, as they help give me a bit more hip and bum. If I’m wearing a pencil skirt I’ll often put a little bit of extra foam padding in them too to create curves.
There’s also stick on silicon hip pads you can get, but they’re pretty pricey so I’ve not tried them yet. (Maybe I should get an amazon wishlist and put some on it!)
Using a combination of the above, plus if you are lucky with genetics, you may be able to break some of the above rules, but generally I stick to the above.
Next time I think I’ll look at creating a waist, and proportions.
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