Style Your Body Shape

One of the things I really want to achieve with this site is a resource where you can find good information, for free, on how to dress for your shape, so that other people like me, who didn’t know an empire line from a kitten heel, can, from scratch, develop their own style. Some people don’t want to know how to do it though, they just want to reap the benefits. To be told these are the things that will fit you. Choose what you want. If that describes you then check out myShape.com.

myShape.com is a personal shopping website. They have defined seven body shapes which they’ve labeled M, Y, S, H, A, P, E, which is kind of creepy, but probably quite functional. Remember shapes are arbitrary and only there to categorize and it doesn’t matter what shape or size you may or may not be if the result is looking and feeling fabulous.

When you join up there is an extensive questionnaire to go through including lots and lots of measurements including some that I would never have even thought of taking. The idea being that the more they know about you the better fitting the clothes they suggest will be. From the measurements you’re categorized into one of the seven body shapes.

My shape is M. There is only a small amount of information about how they categorize body shapes and what will and will not suit that particular shape. It’s not a teaching site - it’s a shopping site. There are two options; shop your personal shop which has only clothing in a size and style that will definitely fit you or shop the entire collection.

I was pleasantly surprised by the stuff in my collection. The majority of the items would suit someone my shape with only a couple of real misses (like a turtleneck jumper - a woman with breasts like mine just can’t carry off a turtleneck) and there were definitely things there I wanted to buy. Unfortunately they only ship to the US and Canada so I was out of luck. I still log in now and then to see if there’s anything I like enough to bother tracking down and to keep an eye on what’s out there.

myShape.com is a good option to style your body shape, but keep coming back to my site. I’ll miss you!

Good shopping,

LISA

Whilst cleaning out my computer I found this review that I wrote of What Not To Wear by Trinny & Susannah. I decided to post it because it’s quite funny but also because this was the first book I read when I began this journey and its interesting to see where I was then.

13/2/2008: Trinny and Susannah have a very popular TV show, What Not To Wear, where they take some woefully dressed woman and make her over. I’ve seen one episode of the show and enjoyed it thoroughly. They emphasise dressing to your best right now, big bums, thunder thighs and saggy boobs included, and hopefully successfully disguised.

The book sets out the rules of clothes to wear to showcase your body to best advantage if you’re sadly afflicted with a fashion resistant area of your body such as an enormous arse or no breasts to speak of. As important it sets out what clothes to avoid which I found to be particularly useful, if only to enable me to condemn my entire wardrobe.

Chapters include big tits, no tits, big arms, big bum, no waist, short legs, flabby tummy, saddlebags, short neck and thick ankles and calves. Clearly the book is targeted at women who have issues with their bodies. However, it’s not done in a way that’s critical or judgemental, rather focusing on real women who have real issues and promoting the idea that despite that any woman can still look fabulous. The outfits are shown in full colour and it really is easy to see the difference the cut and shape of clothes can make to where the eye is drawn and the overall appeal of an outfit. The writing style is straight to the point and often funny as well as practical and always clearly explains why or why not to choose a particular style of clothing.

I loved this book. As someone who’s spent quite a considerable amount of her life with a crap wardrobe because I’ve been waiting until I lost ‘the weight’ its an absolute godsend to learn some guidelines on how to look good without shrouding myself in a caftan as some manufacturers of plus sized clothing seem to think is mandatory. Now I have a much clearer idea of what to buy and what to avoid.

On the downside the authors are English and so unfortunately are the clothes shown, which does me no good at all as I’m not likely to be able to pop down the high street and find what they’re wearing. This applies to type of clothing as well. England is miserably cold ten months of the year so their outfits include jackets, boots and sweaters which aren’t really practical wardrobe inclusions for someone who lives in Australia.

I also found that the book raised as many questions as it did provide answers. Firstly I wouldn’t know an empire line or bias cut if they jumped up and bit me. Secondly I found that, as someone with multiple afflictions, some of the clothes to avoid to disguise one area included clothes to use to disguise another, leaving me confused about what to do.

So, whilst I found the book very helpful, I also found it’s only a first step. I would certainly recommend it to any woman who, like me, is a little tentative about what suits them and what doesn’t.

Find a link to buy the book here.

One of my biggest ‘pet peeves’ is that plus size clothing is so often shapeless and smock like, not to mention plain. It’s as if clothing shops decide if you’re over a size 14 you must be so ashamed that the only thing you want to do is cover up and fade into the background and in all honesty once upon a time that was an accurate estimation of how I felt. But not any more. Now I believe that I, like all big women are just the same as our slender, less curvy sisters … only, um, bigger. We need sexy, stylish clothes as much as the next woman.

Finding it can be a bit of a challenge, which is one of the reasons I started this website. I find I spend a lot of time going through clothing catalogs looking at individual items of clothing. Luckily I enjoy this or it would quite quickly become mind numbing. One of the things I find with most plus sized sites is that the majority of clothing is big, bulky and shapeless, with a few excellent items buried in the chaff. Again, since I enjoy the process it’s not that much of a hardship.

If you prefer to get straight to the point then www.curvety.com is the place to go. This is a United Kingdom based site offering clothes from size 16 to 36. They have a great range of clothes from designer dresses to your daily basics. Prices are mid-range and they will ship internationally.

The thing that I love about curvety.com is that almost everything in the catalog will work with a curvy shape. Curvy women are ultra feminine and there’s just no hiding it. Covering up is not a good strategy. We need to work with our curves and that means creating an hourglass silhouette. Much of what you find at curvety.com is going to help create those curves. Since all the models are plus-sized it’s easy to get an idea of how things will look.

Check out www.curvety.com today.

LISA

Plus size women’s Clothing Online shopping emporium of plus size womens clothing and lingerie with designer chic and a comfortable fit, offering plus size women out size fashion clothes that celebrate our curves!

The The Body Shape Bibleby Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine is exactly what is says: A bible for those looking to dress to suit their shape. If you’re in the market for a book on dressing for your body shape this is the one to get, study and take shopping with you.

I have to admit I was sceptical when I first got it. I thought, wonderful, I’ve just shelled out thirty odd dollars to find that instead of a quarter of the book being about my particular shape it’s actually a twelfth. Yes, Trinny & Susannah have broken the four basic types down even further into twelve distinct types: Goblet, Hourglass, Cello, Skittle, Vase, Pear, Apple, Column, Bell, Cornet, Brick and Lollipop. Each of the categories comes with it’s own description to help you choose what shape your body is. For instance a Lollipop is someone with ‘big tits, slight waist, slim hips and long legs’ and a Cello is someone with ‘big tits, short waist, big hips, big bottom, big thighs and slim lower legs’. Whatever your particular ’stats’ you’ll fit into one of the 12 groups.

For those of you who don’t know Trinny & Susannah are the UK based hosts of ITV’s “What Not To Wear” which they started about six years ago. The ground breaking show has spawned books, the spin off’s “How To Look Good Naked” and “Undressing The Nation” as well as other shows both in the US and all over the world. The Body Shape Bibletheir latest book, is written with their trademark depreciative humor, brutal honesty and gentle but insistent nudging in the right direction.

I find that I agree a lot more with Trinny & Susannah than with other author’s in the genre. One of the items I struggle with is shoes. Don’t get me wrong, I love shoes, but I tend to prefer peep toed heels and round toed shoes. However I’m quite short and my legs are pretty thick so other writers have suggested pointed toed shoes as the best option to elongate my leg and make me look taller and slimmer. In The Body Shape Bibleit’s suggested that a curvy larger lady like myself is better suited to curvy shoes with a sturdy heel rather than a stiletto, something that I would naturally choose myself. I love the boost of confidence I feel that my instincts are right as to what would suit me. A lot of what they suggest is almost common sense.

I really recommend this as a great book for someone who wants a ready reference for styling your shape. It’s easy reading and easy to apply. Make sure you read the whole book as well. I found there were two or three shapes that I could fit into and correspondingly clothes from both that would work for me. More importantly it’s important to know what’s suggested for other body types to grow you list of things to AVOID like the plague. Seriously if a dress suits someone who fits the ‘tits on a stick’ category, it’s unlikely it will work for someone with a little extra around the middle or lots of junk in the trunk. Forewarned is forearmed as the old saying goes.
Buy the book today - you won’t regret it.

LISA