Dress for Beauty
I made this presentation to the girls in a homeschool public speaking class
Do you want to look good in the clothes you wear? I would like to present to you what I have learned about clothes that flatter the person wearing them.
I consider an outfit flattering if it doesn’t draw attention to itself or the wearer’s body, but rather it draws the eye to the wearer’s face.
All items of clothing that I will be referring to as “flattering” are modest, but some things that are considered modest are not all that “flattering”.
For example, the dresses above would be considered quite modest, but I do not consider them particularly flattering. I will explain later.
There are four main things that tend to draw the eye:
• Words and pictures
• Lines
• Contrasting colors
• Light color
This pair of pants has letters on the backside that your eyes are drawn to.
It’s pretty obvious why I don’t consider these pants flattering. But what about a T-shirt with words across the front? I would hope that Christian girls who desire to be modest would not want people’s eyes to be drawn to their chests.
Above is another example of a top that draws the eye to the chest. Do you see how your eye goes straight to the brown line? Not all tops and dresses with empire waists are this bad though. The following dress is quite flattering.
Another way that girls inadvertently draw people’s eyes to their chest is by wearing tops like these, which are gathered around the chest.
Do you see how the gathers form lines that point to the bust?
V-necklines can also have a way of “pointing” to the bust, especially when they’re layered over camisoles or t-shirts. Some V-necklines are flattering, though.
Of course, distracting tops are not the only things that draw attention away from the face.
Skirts with slits draw the eye down toward the leg every time the girl wearing them moves. A slit in a long skirt can sometimes be more distracting than a short skirt, especially when the color of the leg contrasts with the color of the skirt.
Now I’d like to go back to the two dresses I showed you at the beginning.
The first has wrinkles forming around the bust, sort-of pointing to it, and there’s really nothing that draws your eye up to the face. However, if you pair it with a pretty necklace (to draw the eye upward toward the face) you’ll have a nice, flattering outfit.
The second has beautiful embroidery right in the middle of the chest, drawing your eye to it. If it weren’t there, this outfit would be quite nice as the contrasting color of the shirt underneath draws your eye toward the face.
Now I’d like to show you some outfits that I do consider flattering.
This outfit’s collar, contrasting/light top, black skirt all combine to draw the eye upward.
The contrast at waist, then sleeves and neck draws the eye continually up to rest on the face—if the neck was a little higher it’d have an even better affect.
In closing I want to encourage you to look at your wardrobe with new eyes. I challenge you to work with what you have and find new ways to make it flatter you!
Posted on February 02, 2009 by Jordan in: Fun| Modesty| sewing