The Fit of Clothes, a guest post by Maria of Lost in a Spotless Mind
Recently I found my way to Lost in a Spotless Mind, blog of the amazing Maria Hansen Troøyen. A fashion consultant and teacher in Norway, she writes about body positivity, personal style over fashion, and how to do your laundry properly*.
This post sums up so well what I have been trying to work towards for years, once I realised how much an effect my clothes has on my self-esteem and mood during the day. Several years ago I got rid of anything in my wardrobe that didn’t make me feel amazing, but this is often trickier to do when you sew your own clothes – it’s harder to pinpoint the subtle differences that impact how you look, and it’s harder to get rid of things you’ve made! I plan to have another good look at my wardrobe and can already identify some pieces that need to go!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did! For more, see Maria’s blog here.
* I’m not ashamed to admit I found that post extremely useful!
One important aspect of clothing that I’m considering more and more, is fit. With that, I mean how a garment hangs on my body, where the seams are placed, and how the lines in the garment work on the lines on my own body. If you haven’t read my blog post about how to dress your proportions, you might want to read it to learn more about proportions and lines in an outfit in general. I wanted to show you my theories in practice, and happened to have two Breton tops and two black midi skirts available.
At first glance, these might seem like identical outfits: striped top, black midi skirt, brogues, but the tops and skirts have subtle differences that are important for the fit. Oh, and for the rest of this post, please remember that I mean “better for ME”, not “better” period, as I’m using my own, curvy, hourglass shape and my personal style preferences as an example. This post won’t only be of interest to vintage-loving hourglasses, though, as I’ll describe aspects of fit that are important to all body shapes and styles.
Before we look at the clothes, let’s consider my own starting point. We know I’m a curvy hourglass, with a somewhat large bust, a narrower waist, and then fuller hips. Now, you know I’m not a fan of that “you need clothes that make you look as thin and tall as possible”-idea, so instead, I think about fit in terms of my personal preferences and personal style. I’m a big fan of things vintage-inspired, especially from the 50′s to the early 60′s, so a traditionally feminine silhouette, especially a defined waist, is essential. I also prefer not to let my bust “run the show”, so I want tops that allow for the fullness of it, but that are still fitted in the arms, armhole and underneath the bust. In short, to complement my body, which has curved lines, I look for garments that also have curved lines. If I preferred a modern, more relaxed look to my clothes, I would look for the opposite: straighter lines and perhaps a more spacious cut.
Let’s take a closer look at the clothes, and how the design elements affect the fit on my body (this is a good time to remember my blog post about proportions). When it comes to the tops, the necklines are different, with a pretty straight boatneck to the left, and a curved U to the right. Their shoulder seams are placed differently, with a dropped shoulder seam to the left, and a normal, set in sleeve to the right (this is a good blog post about the difference between the two). If you look carefully, you’ll see that the right top has a dart at the bust. Darts are a way of manipulating the fabric so it becomes more three-dimensional, so the garment can follow the lines of the body. In this case, it gives shape to the bust area. There is enough room for my bust, but the fabric still follows my body down towards the waist without much excess fabric. The top to the left has no darts, and a much straighter, looser fit because of it.
With that in mind, let’s look at the tops again. From the front we can see that the left top makes my bust look more massive, because the neckline is higher. With the dropped shoulder seam, my shoulders look less defined and more droopy. That low a shoulder seam also makes my upper arms look wider. Because the horizontal stripes (yeah, I’m a rebel) run uninterrupted from the outside of one arm to the other, it makes my entire upper body area look wider. There is no definition to my waist, because the cut is so straight. In general, there is more excess fabric all around, which isn’t what I look for in my clothes.
In profile we can really see how much difference a small bust dart can do. Look closely at the area where my arm meets my torso. Can you see how the top to the right looks much cleaner and fitted, that it follows my body? Then look at the picture to the left. The fabric is bunching up and just “lying around”, without really following the lines of my bust. If your bust is large in comparison to your torso and/or arms, you’ve probably encountered this issue many times. If you look at my upper body in general, you’ll notice that the top to the right clearly defines my shape; here is the torso, here is the bust, here is the arm. The left top is different, and merely seems content to say “hey, there is a body in here somewhere, guess which shape it has?”. Which is perfectly fine, if that’s the fit you’re after, but it’s just not right for my personal style.
From the back, you can see the same tendencies. The curved neckline looks softer than the straighter, left one. Because the left one has such a loose, straight fit (on me), there is much pooling fabric in my lower back area, which prevents the feminine silhouette I’m looking for.
As for the skirts, their differences lie in both construction and fabric. When it comes to the shape, the left skirt is cut as a long rectangle, sewn together at the side, and a waistband with elastic to provide shape. The other skirt is basically a 3/4 circle skirt, and closes with a zipper at the back. It has a seam about 20 centimeters from the bottom edge, but it’s not a flounce (“volang” in Norwegian). As it doesn’t affect the fit or give any volume, we won’t pay any more attention that seam in this post. To make the difference in the construction of the skirts clearer to you, I made a little drawing:
To the untrained eye these two skirts can look pretty identical, but they’ll behave behave differently once on a body. The rectangle version will have lots of gathers (“wrinkles” in the fabric”) just below the waistband, and will hang pretty straight from your widest part down. You can see that on me, once the skirt has met the widest part of my hips, it falls straight down. There is just no way to make a rectangle skirt behave like a circle skirt, even if you put a petticoat underneath, because it was cut in a straight shape. There are a million rectangle skirts out there camouflaging as full, 50′s like skirts, but I’ve learnt the hard way that they’re just wannabes. Not that the rectangle skirts don’t have their good qualities, of course, just be aware that if you’re after that 50′s/early 60′s twirly skirt (which I always am), a rectangle one just won’t do.
You can test for the difference quite easily if you can try on the garment. Spin around. If the skirt flares out in something resembling a cone in profile, with the widest part of the skirt being the bottom edge, chances are it’s some kind of a circle skirt. If it looks more like a cylinder, with most of the movement somewhere around the middle, it’s probably cut from a rectangle. If the skirt has an elastic waist, try to carefully stretch it and see which shape the skirt takes on. If it suddenly looks like a rectangle, you know what you’re dealing with.
Another important difference in these skirts, is the fabric. The rectangle skirt (which is the “not so good on me” one, remember?) is made of a thin-to-medium polyester knit, which means it drapes well, has lots of movement, but cannot really hold a shape on its own. The right skirt is also made of polyester, but a thicker, woven kind. The difference between knits and wovens are a topic for a whole other blog post (or you can read this one). In this case, though, when we also consider the thickness of the fabrics, it means the left skirt is more stretchy and relies on my body for shape, whereas the right skirt is stiffer and can create a shape on me.
It’s relatively easy to see what happens with these shapes on my body, once you know what to look for. What I want, is a skirt that is fitted at my waist, then gets fuller and fuller, with the widest part at the bottom of the skirt. The left skirt just can’t do that, and hangs straight down from my hips. In profile, the widest part becomes my tummy and upper part of the derrière, whereas the 3/4 circle skirt continues to widen all the way to the hem. From the back, the left skirt gives me a straight, heavy shape, whereas the right skirt mirrors the curves in my upper body, enhancing the hourglass effect.
If you look extra carefully, you can see that in the left profile picture, my back looks very swayed and my posture looks sloppy in general – but I’m standing exactly the same way in the picture to the right! Isn’t it fascinating how different it looks, when the garments look so similar at first glance? Hopefully this post has inspired you to take a closer look at your own clothes, and their shape on your body. Just remember that there isn’t a standard right or wrong when it comes to clothes and personal style. What you should ask yourself is: do my clothes actually do what you want them to do? Or are they just pretending?
