Are You a Triangle or Rectangle or Circle?

No matter what beautiful size we are, we all tend to fit into one of five basic body shapes: Circle, Triangle, Inverted Triangle, Rectangle and Hourglass.

These are just guidelines, and other sites may differ radically. One site may say there are two basic types - another may claim four - and yet another may claim seven.

Let's use five shapes, since it's a nice prime number, fits with the number of fingers on one hand, and is easy to remember and relate to fashion in general.

Now let's talk about each one, shall we?

The Circle

Some people refer to this body shape as apple shape or oval shape in some fashion references, although I find that term a bit silly unless you have a stem sprouting from your neck.

Shoulders and hips are narrow compared to the waist.

Those of us with circle body shapes need to define our non-existent waists and use V-necklines to lengthen our necks and accentuate our shoulders. Sleeveless tops give the illusion of more shoulder than we truly possess. We need interesting hemlines to give that leggy look (and turn attention away from the waist). We need to avoid hemlines that cut us off too far below the knee and turn us into popsicles.

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The Triangle

Some people refer to this body shape as cone shape in some fashion references.

Shoulders are narrow compared to the hips.

Those of us who are triangle shaped need to avoid calling attention to the hip area by using bright colors near the shoulders - scarves, eye-catching necklaces, necklines and collars of interest. Strive for lines that bring the eye upward. Avoid strong waistline definitions. Bring attention to the areas that are needing it, and away from areas that already have too much of it.

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The Inverted Triangle

This body shape is also known as pear shape in some fashion references.

Shoulders are wide compared to the hips.

Those of us who are inverted triangle shape need to draw attention away from our nice wide shoulders and down toward waist and hips. Tunic style jackets with jewel collars (no huge lapels), long lean lines that make us look tall, smooth unbroken lines from shoulder to knee. Avoid breaking up those unbroken lines with belts, horizontal visual breakpoints, prominent waistbands. Avoid fashion traps like shoulder pads - no need to accentuate that positive broad shoulder more than necessary! Bring attention down to the narrow end of that inverted triangle with flair.

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The Rectangle

This body shape is also known as the box shape in some fashion references.

Shoulders and hips are nearly equal, and there is little or no waist definition.

Those of us with rectangle body shapes face some interesting challenges, but we can do a lot by focusing on long lean looks, faux belts (or even real ones), and lovely pointed toes on our shoes. Bright scarves, big chunky necklaces, heavy brooches that bring the eye up to your smile. Find your color and stick with it from neck to knee. Use prints cleverly to create the illusion of indentation and shape at the waistline, with colored side panels, faux vertical seams and tucks, shirring at the midriff, diagonal print panels.

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The Hourglass

This body shape is also known as the proportioned shape in some fashion references.

Shoulders and hips are nearly equal, while waist is narrower.

Those of us with hourglass shapes can wear just about anything with great success (and those of us without hourglass shapes will just have to rein in our green-eyed envy demons and dress ourselves beautifully anyway). Aim for apparel that brings the eye to the waist - big bold belts, tightly tailored shirtwaist dresses.

Not surprisingly, a lot of off-the-shelf apparel is designed for, and modeled by, hourglass-shaped people. This is a great sales ploy, as a catalog full of nice hourglass-shaped models portrays garments in a very positive note. Unfortunately for many of us, this nice hourglass-shaped positive turns into a negative in the dressing room.

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Bottom Line

Know your body shape and be comfortable. Keep the tips in mind when looking at your wardrobe, selecting new apparel and accessories, and dressing for absolute success. In future posts, we'll use these icons to guide your attention toward an item or concept that works well for your own body shape.

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Remember our Mantra

We're curvaceous, audacious, bold, beautiful, voluptuous, sensously shapely, and we dress to show off our beautiful selves! We live in our perfectly shaped world, comfortably fashion forward and proud of it. We celebrate ourselves and our world.


Sponsored by The Large Lass, part of the Perfectly Shaped World.

Right Sized and Smiling

Many of the most well-known and famous women of the world aren't stick-thin model types. Before we achieve style consciousness, we need to seek and attain body image acceptance. Being comfortable and aware of our form, shape, presence, is an important step. If you are comfortable and positive, standing tall and proud, the room will positively glow when you walk in.

Change if you decide you wish to change. Be as you are and proud of who you are. I can't imagine the Mona Lisa as a wallflower... can you?

Just remember our mantra, ladies...

We're curvaceous, audacious, bold, beautiful, voluptuous, sensously shapely, and we dress to show off our beautiful selves! We live in our perfectly shaped world, comfortably fashion forward and proud of it. We celebrate ourselves and our world.

What's In YOUR Closet?

I love Tim Gunn. Wait. That came out wrong. I am a huge (pardon the pun) Tim Gunn fan and have fallen in love with his new show Tim Gunn's Guide to Style for several reasons - the biggest one of which is that he had the foresight to feature a right-size woman as one of his first makeover 'victims.'

JeAnne had recently lost a significant amount of weight, and the Before and After pictures were a clear tribute to her persistence and strength of spirit in her weight-loss endeavor. The show where she is featured is described as "Tim and Veronica give the fashion skinny to a style-impaired woman who recently lost a lot of weight. Included: fitting tips."

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Removing my Stress from my Closet

As my weight climbed and my inability to exercise properly took its toll on my old skinny self, I found myself hoarding garments of my past, reciting the reassuring phrase to myself: I'll fit back into these in a few months.

The few months became a few years, then over a decade, and believe me - I was no closer to getting back into those size 5 neon blue lycra stretch pencil-thin pants than they were getting any closer to being back in style. They kept getting pushed further toward the back in the closet, supplanted by slacks I could actually get my legs into.

Keeping those old skinny-years memorabilia in the closet was doing nothing more than causing stress which caused more eating which caused more weight which caused more stress. Oh, and eating up closet space.

The solution came in the form of catastrophe. Over the Christmas holidays, a fire swept through a neighbor's house, leaving the family of five homeless, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Everyone living nearby scrambled at once, gathering donations, coats, furniture, pots and pans, kitchen appliances, children's toys, and of course clothes.

No, the neon pants didn't go into the pile headed for the burned-out neighbors... I sent practical and usable items. But the search for the usable items brought some sanity to the closet, and the pants did go into the charity bin, where they should have gone back in the decade when disco first took a nose-dive. They were accompanied by every single bit of clothing under size 16 (except for a silly collection of commemorative tank top tees from chili cookoffs of long ago. They don't take up much space at all, now that I've discovered Space Bags).

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The Second Reason I Love Tim Gunn

Several minutes into the show's purposeful agony of cleansing a closet (four stacks - Keep, Mend, Donate, Ditch - not his exact labels, but you get the drift), Tim and Veronica present their fashion victim with a list of Ten Basic Wardrobe Essentials and begin to steer the Keep choices in the direction of that list's contents. Watch an episode (tape it!) and copy down that list if you possibly can. It's gold. Since my own closet is notorious for its tendency to suffer from acute time warp, I've been trying to copy it so I can post it on the inside of my closet door.

Here's what I have on the list so far - anyone have the rest?

* classic white shirt
* classic dress pants
* cashmere sweater
* basic black dress
* trench coat
* properly fit jeans
* proper length skirt
* a blazer that works with your shape
* a day dress
* sweat suit alternative
* a 'fancy night out' dress

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What's in YOUR Closet?

If you're anything like me (or like I was before the neighbors' fire), your closet may be storing a collection of memories instead of a collection of wearable items. I'm not proposing that you run right out and donate everything you own to the charity bin, or ditch it all and buy everything new.

But, if you do decide to tackle an out-of-fashion/fit/function exorcism on your closet space, it's important to give yourself permission to ditch things. Try this:

Start at the far darkest oldest end of your closet - you know, that place where blouses and skirts migrate if they haven't been worn for awhile and may never get worn again.

Take out ONE item and make ONE decision. Put it into one of four stacks:
* Keep
* Mend
* Donate
* Ditch

... you can always change your mind later.

Repeat until you've gone through your entire closet or you've lost the will to carry on.

Take a break and recharge your batteries - have some tea or a shot of decaf of your choice. (I don't recommend regular coffee at a time like this - you've got enough stress without having to handle caffeine jitters on top of it!)

THEN sort the Keep stack into a Fits Now pile and a Used to Fit pile. Put the Used to Fit pile into the Donate stack.

Repeat with the Mend stack. Trim your closet's contents down to items that you will actually wear.

Bundle up the Donate stack and go put it in the front seat of your car, drive to the charity of your choice that has a donations bin, and heave it in. Now, before it creeps back onto hangers and into the closet of its own volition.

Bundle up the Ditch stack and take it with you, and dump it into a convenient dumpster as far away from your house as possible. Put some distance between you and that bag, so it doesn't find its way home.

Seems a bit daunting? Just remember it doesn't have to be done all at once, or done at all! But if your closet is belaboring you with stress, fight back!

Sounds too simple to work? It isn't simple - it may be a very difficult and emotional encounter. Power through it, though, if you're going to do it. Call on a friend. Make an afternoon of it. Try stuff on and make your decisions. Tomorrow you can go tackle her closet.

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But Most Important of All

Remember our mantra that you, my right-size friend, should repeat every day:

We're curvaceous, audacious, bold, beautiful, voluptuous, sensously shapely, and we dress to show off our beautiful selves! We live in our perfectly shaped world, comfortably fashion forward and proud of it. We celebrate ourselves and our world.