Rule 1: Balance Your Proportions
Every body type guide is a version of the same idea: the eye reads the outline of your clothes, so add width or interest where you're narrower and keep things simple where you're wider. Narrow shoulders? Structured jackets and detailed necklines. Wider hips? A simple lower half and detail up top. A straight waist? Belts and wrap shapes. The details for each shape are in body types for women and body types for men.
Rule 2: Use Lines and Colour
Vertical lines lengthen and slim: V-necks, open jackets, long cardigans, front creases, pinstripes, a single colour from top to bottom. Horizontal lines widen: boat necks, wide belts, colour blocking, bold horizontal stripes. Darker colours recede and lighter colours advance, so put lighter colours and prints where you want more presence and darker solids where you want less.
Read more: Body Types for Women: The 5 Shapes and How to Dress Them
Rule 3: Fit Matters Most
No proportion trick can rescue clothes that don't fit. Shoulders should sit at the edge of your shoulders. Shirts and tops shouldn't pull across the chest or gape at the buttons. Waistbands shouldn't cut in. Hems should hit the right place: trousers just touching the shoe, sleeves at the wrist bone. A tailor can fix most of these cheaply, and it's the best money you can spend on clothes.
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Height Changes the Rules a Little
Shorter frames look best with fewer horizontal breaks, so one colour top to bottom, cropped jackets and high-rise trousers help; see how to look taller. Taller frames can carry more breaks, layers and longer lengths; see outfits for tall women.
Read more: Body Types for Men: How to Dress Yours
Try It on a Model Like You
The hardest part of dressing for your body is picturing a piece on you before you buy it. In Ollie Stylist, you can set a realistic model to your body type (slim, average, athletic or plus) and your height, then dress it in real clothes and see the result instantly, for free. Ollie Pro tries the outfit on your own photo.