When you dress the body type you have, you create the body you love
What Do You Need?
“You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.” My kids LOVE when I sing that to them. No they don’t. They actually don’t love it when I sing anything to them (let’s just say the music industry hasn’t been beating down my door), but this one in particular, though a favorite and a classic, is their cue that things won’t be going their way.
But the truth is, sometimes when things don’t go your way, it’s the best thing that can happen to you. You get something better.
This article and the video below are taken from the Stunning Style Weekly Style Snack! Join us Wednesdays at 1pm ET on the Stunning Style Facebook page or the FREE Capsule Wardrobes for Classic Style Facebook Group.
Media Lies We Believe
A sad fact is that we’ve been trained by the media to aspire to look one certain way, to force our bodies to comply with a standard that doesn’t even exist. In order to be acceptable, we must look like the photoshopped models and celebrities who don’t even look like that in real life.
In this picture you can see Zooey Deschanel’s proportions. She appears to have a short torso in all the street style pictures I see of her, but in this magazine image they’ve stretched and lengthened her torso and slimmed her legs. Her body is perfect just as it is. Why would they do that?
Nigella Lawson has a beautiful figure, but in this picture they’ve thinned her entire body and removed every wrinkle and bump in her dress. You can see her in the exact same dress in public, without the photoshopped alterations. Dresses make bumps and wrinkles! They move as we move!
By doing this they’re essentially telling us only long, thin, smooth perfection is acceptable, when their bodies were already perfect just as they were. Just like every woman on the planet, they have unique proportions and features that make them…them. So we must they transform their bodies into an impossible standard?
Wantin’ Ain’t Gettin’
When I first learned that I have a short torso, meaning there is almost an inch between my hips and ribs, and that I will never have a dramatic or narrow waist, it was LIFE CHANGING. My whole torso is basically bone, and you can’t whittle bone. I will never have the waistline of a bikini model, or any waistline, actually, and I don’t need to beat myself up for it. Suddenly, I was free! I could quit trying to achieve an impossible result. I’d just as easily grow four inches. It’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. And that’s perfectly fine.
If you’re from the South you’ve probably had someone tell you at least once, “Wantin’ ain’t gettin.’” I have a pear-shaped body, and at every stage of my life, it’s been perfect. Not by media standards, but by my standards. Why? Because it’s my body. That’s the only standard I have. Wanting to be a different body shape won’t change what I am. After too many years of wanting and not getting a different body, I finally look back and see my body was always perfect.
Dieting, exercising, and beating myself up literally or figuratively won’t change that. Of course I can always be the healthiest, fittest version of myself, but I will still be…a pear. Our body types are determined by our bone structure, and we can’t change that.
Another way to put it is the saying, “Gratitude turns what you have into enough.” It is such a relief to allow my body to be enough. Enough is perfect.
Gratitude or Settling?
Does this mean you settle for feeling uncomfortable and unconfident in your clothes? Of course not. This isn’t about settling or choosing.
All body shapes and sizes are beautiful, but we’ve been conditioned to believe that an unattainable ideal is the standard we should hold ourselves to, and it’s a marketing lie. Your body is perfect! When you dress the body you have, you create the body you love, and suddenly it becomes enough. Focusing on all of your best assets, working WITH your body instead of fighting against it, allows you to fall in love with your body again, or for the first time ever.
Because we can’t change our body shapes, it’s easy to feel powerless, but dressing for your body shape is something you can control, and you take back the power.
Your body is beautiful, and in the Style Your Silhouette course, instead of hiding parts of our bodies, we accentuate and highlight specific parts of our bodies. Think of a stage production. The lighting crew shines spotlights on certain parts of the stage to draw your attention to the place they want you to look.
It could be because they want to direct our eyes to where the most important action is, to distract us from something like a set change, or because they are trying to achieve an effect like telling us we are seeing a memory, a weather change, or magic.
We can do the same thing with outfits, spotlighting the parts where we want to focus their attention, and use that to make them see what we want them to see.
When you work with, not against, your naturally fabulous features it’s so freeing. I want you to fall in love with your body because it’s amazing!
Rules? We Hate Rules!
You know all about my love/hate relationship with rules, I love the rules that serve me and ignore or break the ones that don’t. My attitude hasn’t changed. But remember, you can’t decide which rules to follow and which ones to break if you don’t know what they are and how they can serve you.
You do not have to follow all the rules for dressing for your body type. I don’t! I break them all the time!
Not only that, but if you don’t know your body shape or the rules, you could be dressing for the wrong body type instead of your own, making you feel like something is wrong with you, when it’s really the clothes that are the problem. It’s not you, it’s the clothes!!! There are much better options for you, and when you know what they are, you can look and feel your very most amazing! It goes back to the boat analogy.
How Do I Dress for My Body Shape?
I created Style Your Silhouette because I was frustrated by how rigid the rules of dressing for my body shape were, and that all of the information for dressing for your body type came from a space of shame. Cover this! Hide that! This is the only program of its kind. It not only focuses on your best features and comes from a space of positivity, it shows you exactly how to dress to flatter your figure — AND how to break the rules and wear the things you love.
By the end of this program you will:
- Nail down your body type (80% of women think they are a different body type!)
- Know all of your best features and what makes your shape unique to you
- Learn the tools for choosing the most flattering tops, bottoms, dresses, accessories, and layers for your silhouette
- Have a clear layout of exactly what suits your beautiful body best
- Learn how to wear what you love, even if it doesn’t follow the rules
- Shop for pants confidently
- Understand the elements of each type of clothing, like pockets, fabric, and color, and how they affect your silhouette
- Be kinder to and more accepting of your body (we could all benefit from improving our self-love)
And…
- Fall in love with your body all over again.
But above all else, Style Your Silhouette will give you the confidence to finally embrace your beautiful shape and the freedom to choose which rules you follow because they serve you, which ones to ignore because they don’t, and how to get the best of both worlds.
You can learn more and enroll in my 2-part Style Your Silhouette course here.
So no, maybe you didn’t get what you want, the body the media says you SHOULD have, but you did get what you need, to love the beautiful, amazing body you have. And it’s perfect.
