Principles of Good Proportion and Balance

It’s easy to choose clothes that add pounds to your appearance if you haven’t developed principles of good proportion and balance.  You can create an illusion of a balanced body when using these principles disguising areas that you consider “flaws.”  Our primary goal of any clothing is to create a balanced body. 

Stand in front of a full-length mirror and simply look for the obvious shapes and lengths listed below.  Start with your neck-remember that the neck appears longer on sloping shoulders and shorter on square ones. 

If you found that you have some characteristics from more than one category, then you simply have a combination frame or a frame that is balanced.  Just follow the recommendations for your figure challenges and remember to create good balance from top to bottom.

The following will help you get started by classifying what body frame/bone structure you have. 

Types of Body Frames/Bone Structure

A-Frame

• Bottom heavy - Shoulders narrower than hips or sloping
• Pear shape
• Possibly small busted
• Carries weight in hips (upper thighs)
• Slender midriff — No spare tire when sitting unless overweight

Goal:  Balance by widening shoulders.

V-Frame

• Shoulders are 2 or more inches wider than hips
• Large bust
• Narrow, flat hips
• Very thin legs
• Avoid skinny look on the bottom

Goal:  Give illusion of hour glass - widen hips and upper leg area.

H-Frame

• Average to large waist, high hips, short to tall in stature
• Athletic built (not always)
• Essentially straight up and down shape
• Width across shoulder and width across hip is the same
• Gains weight in the middle
• Sometimes broader shoulder (never narrow)
• Usually doesn’t have much of a “behind”
• Avoid lines which are too busy or skimpy

Goal:  Create hour glass figure - an illusion of a smaller waist.

8-Frame

• Can be short or tall; average to large bust; hips same size as bust; waist - 1″ smaller
• Gains weight evenly all over
• Leg length and upper torso length are balanced
• Frame is curvy and balanced

Goal:  This figure should emphasize the waist and avoid cluttering the figure with lots of clothes or layers.  This would involve choosing garments that fit the body and identify the waist.

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Categories: Clothes, Fashion Tips
Tags: , 8-frame, A-frame, balance, balanced body, body frame, bone structure, Clothes, flaws, frame, H-frame, proportion, V-frame