If you’ve ever had a style or body shape consultation with me, you may remember me saying that you should never put a horizontal line on a part of your body that you don’t wish to appear wider than it is.

When it comes to our clothing, lines are EVERYWHERE, and they can make or break an outfit for us without us even realising.

They are in the structure of our clothing, the prints we wear, and they are also created by the way in which we wear our clothes, so it’s really important to understand about lines and how they work with our bodies in order to create looks we like, and feel comfortable in.

I recently did a live in my Facebook group all about lines, so if you’d like to watch that, head over to the group now by clicking here, or read on for a summary of what was covered.

Patterns

Let’s look at the most obvious way in which lines appear in our clothing – stripes.

I’m sure you’re already aware that vertical stripes lengthen, and horizontal stripes widen.

So vertical stripes on trousers, for example, will give the appearance of lengthening your legs and horizontal stripes, e.g. a Breton top, will widen your body, which is great if you happen to be a triangle/pear shape in particular as this will help to balance your body shape, especially if worn with a darker, plain colour on the lower half.

Colour Breaks

The second way in which lines appear in our clothing is in colour breaks. 

Any break in colour will create a line.

If you think about a white top worn with black trousers, for example, the point at which the two meet creates a horizontal line that the eye will be drawn to. 

If that line happens to be at the widest part of your tummy/hips/bottom and you’re self conscious about this area, then raising or lowering that line will help to detract attention away from that area.

This reel that I made last year demonstrates this – just click here to watch.

A note on black:

Many women like to wear all black because it is thought to be very slimming.

In fact, the reason it is slimming is because a) it’s a dark colour; and b) wearing one colour from head to toe creates no colour breaks, and therefore no lines drawing attention to any part of your body that you feel self conscious about.

So actually, any dark colour worn head to toe can create a slimming effect, so it might be worth trying navy, dark grey, pine green (below), damson, chocolate brown etc, and seeing how that makes you feel instead. You may find you prefer it.

Seams

Lines are also found in the construction of our clothes themselves, in the form of seams and hemlines.

Think about shoulder lines, sleeve lengths, and skirt/dress/trouser lengths for example.

These can all make or break outfits for us, and rather then getting rid of clothes because you think they just don’t look right, just a couple of simple tweaks might be all that is needed to make a difference.

Not always, but very often!

Shoulder lines

If you have narrow shoulders, try dropped shoulder style tops/jackets, as this will give the appearance of them being wider and balancing with your hips.

However, if you have wider or very straight, angular shoulders, you might find raglan style tops, halter necks, and inset seams feel more comfortable and help to balance your look.

Hemlines

Try to avoid a hemline ending on the widest part of your leg, whether on skirts, dresses or trousers, unless you want to draw attention to this part of your leg.

Sleeve lines

If you feel self conscious about your upper arms or a full bust, avoid sleeves that end mid-upper arm. Go for slightly longer elbow-length sleeves. If it is only your full bust that you don’t want to draw attention to, you could try a cap sleeve.

Ankles

If you’re self conscious about fuller ankles, avoid any shoes with ankle straps and try lower cut shoes or nude coloured shoes, as this will help to lengthen and give the appearance of slimming them down.

When you know the effect that each of these types of lines can have on your overall look, it makes shopping and dressing so much easier and more focussed, because you understand why certain items of clothing work and others don’t.