I’m super picky about clothing. Quality, price tag, style, and need are all the factors that matter to me. However, sometimes even when I found something that fits the bill I still walked away from it not because I didn’t need it, but simply because it didn’t look good on me.

But, “looking good” can be so subjective, right? How do we quantify “looking good”? To me, looking good means the following things:

• Color. Does the color complement my skin tone?
• Style. Does the style suit my personality?
• Silhouette. Does the silhouette flatters my body shape?

May be I will write a blog post for personal style and color, but today I just want to focus on silhouette.

Why silhouette matters?

In fashion world, silhouette describes the shape of a person’s body or the shape created by wearing clothing of a particular style. Different style of clothing alters our silhouettes differently, but the goal is to create a silhouette that aesthetically pleasing.

By modern beauty standards, we want to look tall and slim, so what do we do to achieve it? For me, I’m an average hight person with average legs, not shot but not long either, so that doesn’t make me a tall person. However, a lot of people, even some of my close friends, think I am tall. That’s because the styles of clothing I wore helped creating that illusion.

First, I hardly ever wear flats. Even on my off days I wear comfortable mid-high heels. It adds visual length to my legs. Second, I hardly ever wear clothes that visually divides my body in half, horizontally. I normally wear things that create a division line either below my bottom or above my waist line. This helps creating an illusion of long legs, therefore a tall appearance.

Next time when you picking up a sweater or a pair of jeans, think twice whether it helps to create a silhouette that betters your body shape.

I’m wearing:
Sweater: C/MEO
Pants: Finders Keepers, this will work the same.
Shoes: 云开皮具, this will work, too.
Bag: Valentino
Hat: J’Crew