Top Tips for Looking Slimmer

The female figure is best flattered by creating the illusion of the figure-of-eight or hourglass shape through clothing. Technically, a lady is considered “hourglass” if her bust and waist are of equal proportion and there is at least a 10″ difference between her bust and the waist and again between her hips and the waist. Marilyn Monroe, the most famous hourglass of all time, was, it seems, an astonishing 38″-23″-38″!

We sit down a lot more these days and we don’t do the same amount of manual work or housekeeping that our ancestors did. Because of these more-sedentary lifestyles, the hourglass is now a rare species – they call this “the thickening of the waist”. The whole area of hourglass has a bit of a cult following and many websites offer complex formulas that work out the ratio of bust to hips and hips to waist to calculate which celebrities are indeed truly hourglass (with the use of personal stylists and even plastic surgery the lines have become quite blurred)!

No-one has the “perfect figure” and the good news is that, with the right knowledge, we can enhance our best bits and camouflage what we feel are our problem areas with a bit of eye-trickery!

There are lots of great way we can flatter our figures, and here are my 10 Top Tips for Looking Slimmer in your clothing.

  1. Wear tops with long narrow V to elongate body and expose the collar bone, the body’s slimmest part
  2. Avoid clothes that end at your widest part as they draw the eye across the body
  3. Choose a good cut that fits perfectly – hiding behind baggy clothes only adds volume
  4. Go for draping, matte fabrics like jersey to smooth and support and hide problem areas – think “skim, not cling”
  5. Wear heels in the form of a court shoe or wedge – extra height is always slimming
  6. Supportive, well-fitting underwear is the foundation of every outfit and getting professionally fitted for a bra guarantees a longer, slimmer waistline
  7. Wear wider-leg jeans and trousers to balance out curves
  8. Go for pattern size and accessories relative to your body size, avoiding very big prints
  9. Wear simple, contrasting shades like black and white or shades of the same solid, darker colour from top-to-toe
  10. Go for vertical cuts like waterfall blazers or patterns such as pinstripe to draw the eye downwards and create a narrowing effect on the body

I hope you find these tips of help when decluttering your wardrobe and shopping selectively, and you can also check out my equally-important Top Tips for Looking Curvier in your clothing.

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