A Wren Says

Fashion Elitist put out a video a few months back entitled “It’s not your Fit, It’s your Body.” He makes the case that the way that fashion industry works is by designing for certain body types. Often, it is a thin frame with little curvature. You might find that you don’t like the way that clothes fit on you, but that is because they likely weren’t designed with you in mind. You then have the choice.  Do you do all that you can to make your body mimic the form they used to design everything or do you recognize that it was never made you in the first place and stop trying to force it? It could feel like a devil’s bargain: Change yourself or give up.

I see it another way. How do you go about making sure that you are doing things that work for you. Instead of chasing trends, how do you make sure that you are choose the most flattering cuts for you? Go on the path of finding what clothing works best for you.

Fashion Elitist suggests measuring yourself and then paying attention to size charts. I have personally found that when I do this, I tend to find clothing fits well. Instead of constantly guessing and staying too long in the fitting room, I can make a quicker determination of the sizes that work best. When you get better at paying attention to these details, you may find that across brands the same size corresponds to different measurements. Note that European and Asian brands will run smaller than US brands. The size chart is your friend.

The next thing to consider is how you view your body and how you want it to look. There are things that you could do to alter your body, but we are focusing on making clothes work for us right now. You can easily emphasize or hide various aspects of your shape if you choose the right items. Consider the gut of the garment and the fabric that is used.  Different shapes and fabrics will look different depending on various body shapes. Just because it’s on trend doesn’t mean it will look good on you.

I could leave it there and just say, “Yay! Just work on finding clothes that do look good on you! Don’t worry about the rest!” but I know that clothes shopping and body image can be difficult. However, I think it is helpful to take a step back to think objectively about this process. I say this as someone who personally needs to work on that. Clothes are just premeasured pieces of fabric. If it doesn’t fit the way you’d like, change the piece of cloth, not yourself.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you watch his video. He goes much more in-depth on this topic and his personal journey with it.