‘E’ is for Elongate
Many of the women I work with as an image consultant happen to be petite (under 5’3) It’s also not uncommon that most of them want to visually add some height in the best possible way to enhance their overall appearance.
Here are seven of my best tips that I see work successfully over and over.
-
Trousers and jeans that are the correct width throughout the leg length – not going too wide can add apparent length to your overall height.
-
Wearing nude or skin colour shoes particularly with skirts and dresses is one of the best ways to instantly and visually elongate your legs! This one single tip will have you looking taller and slimmer as you create one long vertical line with no colour break at the ankle or foot!
-
The correct fabrication and amount of fabric that sits on a person frame in relation to their height, scale and body type is crucial. Too much fabric will overwhelm and quickly shorten a person significantly.
-
Less is more on a petite frame, therefore simple uncluttered garments and outfits work best. Patterns, collars, jewellery, embellishments, pockets and accessories need to be in proportion to a persons height and weight.
-
Vertical design lines will successfully and visually add height to a petite frame better than anything else. The eye moves rapidly up and down when we apply verticals to our outfits. This can be achieved through pleats, jacket lapels, vertical stripes, buttons, front seams and trims, plackets, zips, open single breasted and v-necks.
-
High placed arm holes at the arm pits are particularly important for a petite person – this will avoid shortening the torso hence giving an overall lengthening effect.
-
And lastly, by wearing a monochromatic colour scheme (different shades of the same colour) or a column of colour ( same colour worn down the outside or inside with a contrasting colour) will both help to elongate also. See images below left.
