The list of death

Good morning blog-land!

I can't believe how crowded the past few weeks month have been. I went from writing pages upon pages in my diary every day to writing maybe a page every three weeks :( I always just fell asleep before I got the chance to write anything. But thinking about my personal style and all the clothes I'm going to make when I have a break from university calms me down and helps me focus better afterwards. So let's get started shall we?

In my last post about body shape and personal style I came to realise, that I am an hourglass with shoulders that are just a bit to wide. It might just be my preference for pear body shapes over hourglasses. I don't know why but I also prefer heart shaped and inverted triangle faces over oval ones. Contemplating why that might be is a matter for another post though. So my aim today is to find a list of desirable properties for my clothes and also a list of things I should avoid at any cost.

Since my ideal body shape isn't the same as the “ideal body shape” all body shape bibles etc. talk of I had to piece this together for myself. I mainly used two great websites to help me do so:

• http://www.insideoutstyleblog.com which is simply amazing! Imogen Laport – who runs the site – defines more than just the standard four body shapes and even shows photos of different women for each shape. All the tips are very well thought through and coherent. I found her hints for minimizing square shoulders especially helpful.
• http://bodyshapestyle.com is also a great place for advice. I especially enjoyed this article about the whole skin vs. shape dilema and also the butt vs. bust if you go for showing skin. Though it is meant only for evening wear I think it can also be used for every day wear. There was also an article that contained the sentence: “Use the best type of fabric you can afford.” What's not to love about that?

So I started with the list of things I shouldn't wear:

THE LIST OF DEATH (not melodramatic at all)

• high necklines, especially turtle necks as they make my shoulders look wider and overemphasise my bust
  
• cap sleeves or gathered sleeves: again to much emphasis on the shoulders
  
  Since this is a fluffiness issue extra fullness at the hip and emphasis on the waist could work
  
• frills and colour accents around the shoulder line
• this one goes without saying: baggy clothes! No-one looks good in baggy clothes! And I don't sew for myself only to have clothes with horrible fit either.
• 
  
  Wide necklines – I'm taking this to mean necklines that go past my bra strap as necklines that just about cover them look great as long as they're not to shallow.
• Chunky fabrics – I'm not objecting as I like “feminine”, drapey fabrics that move in the breeze much better
• anything strapless as I like to be able to dance in all of my clothes and I think a strapless bra sliding up and down all the time wouldn't be very helpful
  
  
• this picture also illustrates that I have to be careful with short hemlines as it tends to look cheap very quickly (but I'd be happy to accept other opinions on this … do you find this dress appealing on my figure?)

On another note: These pictures make me realise that my ribs seem to be sticking out quite a lot. That might explain some weird fitting issues I have around the waist and under bust region. Do you think I could/should wear a corset for formal events to push my ribs in? It wouldn't need to be industrial strength as I can just push my ribs in with my fingers. A long line bra might be all that's needed now that I come to think of it. That might also help with the strapless bra problem. Does anyone have experience with wearing a long line bra to go strapless?

Butterfly

PS: Thank you for the nice comments :)