Dress Styles for Your Body Shape
Baby Doll to Smock to Wrap Dress, Choose the Right Dress For You!
Jan 15, 2008
Do you know your trapeze dress from your baby doll? Your mini from your maxi? With so many dress styles to choose from this season, find one that flatters your body type!
With such a wide choice of dress styles in women's fashion it is important to know which is likely to be the most suitable for your shape.
Take advantage of this year's fashion trends to get to know your shift dress from your sheath or your empire-line from your baby doll!
Baby Doll
- A baby doll is a shorter version of an empire line, and is in a similar style to a short nightgown or negligee. It is often trimmed with lace, bows, ruffles and ribbons, according to Iamfashion.com’s “Baby Doll or Empire Waist?”
- This dress typically has a sweetheart or straight neckline. A scoop neck will counterbalance sleeves and is flattering for bigger-busted women. Due to the short-length, skyscraper legs are a prerequisite to carry off this style well. For those lacking in this department then it is possible to lengthen the leg with high heels and platform shoes.
- A very flattering dress for almost any figure as the waistline is raised above the natural waist, which also may fall right below the bust. Good for shorter, petite figures and those with big tums as the empire dress creates the illusion of length and skims the body, camouflaging wide hips or a thick waist.
- The baby doll and the empire-line dress are not mutually exclusive, but the empire had a more feminine/mature bust and can also be full-length.The high waist is usually complemented with a deep V-neckline, rather than the more babyish round-neck.
- Spring and Summer fashion trends of 2008 sees a continued revival of this Great Gatsby classic. Beads, fringes and ruffles give a new twist to the vintage dresses of the 1920s. Figure-friendly for most, as they fall straight, skimming the body. Flapper dresses are sleeveless by tradition, often with drop-waists. Teem it with a flapper headband, red-hot this season.
Kaftan (or Caftan)
- The kaftan is the universal cover-up on the beach. Long or short sleeved it has re-emerged as a fashion icon, "swamping the sarong and overpowering the pareo to become the mainstay of the holiday wardrobe." says fashionolic.blogspot.com. It can also be worn as a tunic top over skinny jeans or a full length glamorous gown for evening wear.
Mini
- This covers a wide range of styles but basically denotes a short dress, above the knee. 2008 sees a real contrast of styles are both the mini and the maxi vie for a place on the copy-catwalks of the high-street. Pair a mini dress with wedges or flats.
- More mature women should balance out the shortness of the dress by wearing it with leggings or pants. Younger ones can wear it with coloured opaque tights, one of the fashion must-haves this season.
Maxi
- A figure-friendly dress-style for all shapes and sizes. Floaty and feminine, covering hips, tums and bums. Avoid volumnous skirts if you are petite and wear a maxi with platform shoes or wedges to lengthen the silhouette.
Shift
- This timeless classic is one of the most versatile dress styles. Tailored enough for business and sexy enough for eveningwear. A sophisticated classic black shift is the all time little black dress. Very Audrey Hepburn.
- Bigger-busted women should avoid a high neck, and go for a lower, wider neck to break up the line between neck and bust, "preventing them looking like an extension of the chin”, say Trinny and Susannah, in their book What Not To Wear:The Rules (Weidenfeld Nicolson Illustrated, June 2004)
Sheath
- A sheath dress is a variation on the shift, often with a deep V-neckline. It usually has a defined waist and a figure-hugging silhouette. It may have darts or curve slightly inward at the waist and is often in a lightweight fabric such as silk or cotton.
- Good for curvy figures, “This short (mid-calf or shorter) dress works well in sleeveless styles on well-toned bodies” says Cynthis Nellis of about.com in “Definition of a Sheath dress.”
Smock
- This figure-friendly smock style will cover all manner or lumps and bumps. Once the domain of pregnant women, if you don’t want to look as if you are expecting then “go for a light, fluid fabric that doesn’t add bulk to your shape”, recommends Shop Til You Drop, December 2007 edition in their feature,“Smock Value”.
- Balance out this short dress with platform shoes and chunky heels. Older women can still get away with this style if they teem it with leggings or jeans. Avoid frilly, volumnous puffy and leg-of-mutton type sleeves if you are more mature, to lessen the "baby doll" effect.
Tea Dress
- Traditionally worn by ladies who took afternoon tea, the classic floral print tea dress suits almost any figure. Calf-length and floaty, it can hide numerous lumps and bumps.
Toga
- Also known as the goddess dress, the toga brings femininity back into fashion. Worn as a mini, knee length or maxi, this Greco-Roman trend is one of the view dress trends which really flatters older women. Evening wear favors one shoulder, flowing styles, favored by such celebrities as Kate Blanchette or Katie Holmes.
Trapeze
- Also known as a tent or sack, this is a dress that's shaped like a trapezoid with the cut jutting out and away from the body. "Depending on the degree of jut, the effect can be subtly architectural or thoroughly over-the-top," says the Washington Post.
- To qualify as a trapeze dress the cut must be above the knee and have no waistline, with the skirt taking on an A-line shape. To carry off this style you need to be more of an average frame than petite. To balance out the full skirt make sure the shoulders are a good fit and a banded neckline can add definition.
Wrap-over
- An extremely versatile and timeless style which flatters more curvy women rather than boyish shapes. The wrap dress crosses over underneath the bust, with the skirt falling gently below, whittling down the waist and camouflaging the stomach.
- The wrap dress usually has cross over ties which can be adjusted to suit the different bust sizes, making it figure-friendly for big busted women as it lifts and separates the bust, avoiding what Trinny and Susannah refer to as the “uniboob” look!
The copyright of the article Dress Styles for Your Body Shape in Women's Dresses/Skirts is owned by Gill Hart. Permission to republish Dress Styles for Your Body Shape in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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