Understanding silhouettes to adjust your style to your body shape
This silhouette guide was written to make your life easier and prevent you from worrying too much in front of the mirror.
This way, you will be able to understand yourself a little better and identify the keys that will allow you to avoid recurring mistakes by adjusting your outfits to your body shape .
History of the male silhouette
The golden ratio: 1.618
The Golden Ratio is a perfect universal ratio in geometry. It has been known since Antiquity and was established as an artistic principle during the Renaissance, notably under the influence of the Franciscan monk Luca Pacioli who saw the providence of God in his De Divina Proportione , and made it the measure of all things.
According to the treatise, nothing perfect exists in nature that is not relative to Number in one way or another. Now, man being the most beautiful of God's creations and at the summit of creation, he is necessarily the most perfect expression and therefore measurable from every angle thanks to the Number.
Luca Pacioli with a rhombicuboctahedron, Archimedes' polyhedron which allows relationships of proportion to be established with ease (c. 1495)
Modern mathematics has made it possible to re-evaluate this somewhat hasty point of view, but the principle remains true in approximate visual proportions and is still valid today in art, thus laying the foundations of the relationships of the human body.
Generally speaking, when you begin to take a deep interest in fashion (as an amateur, not a designer), it is useless to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the muscles and their locations, but to have a vague idea of the canons of proportions represents a great advantage.
In addition to developing your eye (which is valuable in fields like architecture), it will be useful to you everywhere in fashion design, allowing you to judge an outfit at first glance and to intrinsically understand certain abstruse principles of dark creators, or even to instinctively balance your different pieces .
These notions are also essential in drawing.
Master the eight-headed cannon
One of the classic artistic canons incorporating the idea of the golden ratio is the “cannon of eight heads” . It is a method of dividing the body into eight equal parts - the heads - which corresponds to the ideal representation of a man of approximately 1.85m.
We go to seven and a half heads for more frail morphologies, around 1.70m, and nine for a body of two meters, a head therefore corresponding to approximately 20/25 cm.
But it is more complicated to divide into seven and a half, the classic division into quarters of the head allows you to focus on particular locations of the anatomy (nipples, navel, pubis, mid-thigh, knees, etc.).
The proportions are also maintained when you extend your arms or legs.
Eight-headed cannon. Credit Les Forges
It is an extremely practical tool for balancing your clothes:
- Let's say, for example, that you put on high-waisted pants that reach your navel, and not on the “natural waist” located a little higher than the pubis. Your silhouette will be unbalanced (5/2 pants/shirt ratio) and you must therefore find a way to find a more natural ratio (4/3) for example, with a loose cardigan or a jacket.
Fashion from the 50s: high pants and long jackets. Featuring Fred Astaire
- It's the same for long coats . A three-quarter length coat takes its exact name from this ratio of proportions (6/2, well 5/2, but we traditionally include the head in the ratios established in reverse vertical).
- If you wear a longer coat, you will find yourself in an “unnatural” 7/1 ratio that you will have to rebalance in one way or another, with a long scarf for example, which will allow you to bring it back to a more harmonious progressive 5/7/1 ratio.
This is why long closed coats are unpleasant to the eye , and why they have much more fluidity open and/or worn with a scarf with dangling ends. In addition to being visually structured by the horizontal line of the waist, they look much better on very tall people (more heads in the ratios). It is better to choose them in cashmere or other fluid materials rather than in rigid materials, such as virgin wool or polyester which freeze the silhouette.
Let's be clear: closing the overcoat would completely break the silhouette effect. He would at least have the advantage of hiding his pants .
We also see that many men are starting to roll up their chinos . It allows you to show off the beautiful pair of pumps you just invested in, but, consciously or not, it establishes a 3/3/1 ratio (shirt/pants/calves) instead of a simple 3/4.
Visually, the symmetry is broken by a slight asymmetry at the bottom, a principle found for example in the Japanese concept of wabi sabi : true harmony does not reside in perfection, but in the crack which slightly disfigures it.
Concrete explanation: we have here a sublime and very balanced silhouette. The pieces follow a decreasing gradation of proportions starting from the head: 4/3/2/1 with a visible 3/2/1 and hidden extensions of the clothing forming the rest of the gradation and unconsciously adding to the general balance. The icing on the cake: the 1/1/1 proportion references to the calves/pubic area/head which cut the silhouette into two very clear halves. Credits Tommy Ton.
How to balance volumes in an outfit
Once we have grasped the principle of the eight-headed cannon , the rest follows quite naturally, quite simply because the eye acquires excellent habits and begins to instinctively perceive the anatomical subtleties which would have required a conscious effort of measurement. previously. The volumes remain.
Basically, the body is divided into horizontal and vertical lines. But being essentially distributed on a vertical plane, the determining volumes on the silhouette are analyzed in strata while those “in column” remain anecdotal.
In the silhouette of the previous diagram, the horizontal lines created by the stacking of pieces form a stable structure and are sufficient in themselves, to the point that the vertical lines of the sides of the jacket and the parka go unnoticed. It is the stacking of the pieces that allows this structure.
Some silhouettes do without this “easy” structure and work entirely vertically. It’s even one of the main differences between male and female body shapes . Take this one for example.
Street style. Credits: Tommy Ton
The heavier male bone structure is roughly constructed as a stack of cubes or cylinders, making it visually “thicker,” while the more slender female structure can be summarized in lines.
Hence in particular the wearing of heels which makes a woman's body slim but which is perfectly ridiculous for men beyond a certain length.
More precisely, this is only possible with certain dark designers like Rick Owens, who requires a very specific body shape from the wearers of their clothes. An almost feminine morphology (see the thigh circumference of its models).
Rick Owen Spring/Summer 2014 show
The work in length, in men, makes the silhouette very feminine (as we see above), but can be particularly interesting to analyze.
Here, we therefore have a 5/6/1/1 ratio (sweater/coat/“bare” space/boots) which would be unbalanced without the addition of larger boots on the feet to rebalance the silhouette downwards.
The destructuring of the silhouette , however, remains an essentially feminine job (long flowing silhouettes based on pleated skirts, long flying coats, heels).
The vertical work of the silhouette can, however, be worked in another way, with volume plays . The human gaze naturally tends to focus on:
- the visible extremities: this is one of the areas of work of a designer like Carol Christian Poell , whose goal is to asexualize the silhouette as much as possible to concentrate on the hands and feet - and if nothing particularly stands out, Chest.
For this outfit, the goal is to blur the lines of the body and draw the eye towards the hands.
- the largest volumes : if you have a stronger than average build , it will be in your interest to blur your appearance to direct the gaze towards other places such as the face.
- minority colors : if you have an overall black silhouette and a white t-shirt, the eye will naturally gravitate towards the white t-shirt. So towards your chest.
- Conversely, it will go towards black if you are wearing a lighter outfit. Suffice to say that it is not necessarily a very good choice depending on your size.
In fact, the eight-headed canon is applicable if you have an “ideal” figure : thin or with more shoulders than hips. Otherwise, you have two choices: in the long term, follow Rick Owens' advice
“Nothing will make you feel or look more comfortable than a muscular body. Stop buying clothes and go to the gym. »
You will be able to play with the whole range of mix & match that this type of silhouette offers you.
In the short term - but it's still short term - you can resort to volume tricks.
Do you have an unusual size?
- Strengthen your shoulders. Take American jackets with shoulder reinforcements that will frame your silhouette , and crossed buttonholes that will blur your waist.
Jackets with padded shoulders help compensate for slimmer silhouettes. Credits Samson Fall/Winter 2015 collection
- Do you have a slender figure? Be like the guy Tommy Ton took a photo of. Add chunky boots, leave your hands visible or put on elaborate mittens.
In women, fat tends to accumulate preferably on the thighs, buttocks and hips. This is what we call the gynoid profile : it gives this hourglass silhouette that we use to characterize female forms, even more markedly in primitive art (see the Venus of Willendorf for example).
One of the first known female representations, highlighting feminine attributes. #emotion
In men, fat tends to accumulate on the thorax and abdomen (the android profile), it is technically more difficult to upgrade to a larger pant size in men than in women. In addition, a little brioche is much more easily concealed for us than for women.
As long as you already have broad shoulders, your entire silhouette will only be really impacted if you have made Burger King your second home (which will probably happen for some of us since they are opening everywhere in France).
Gynoid (left) and android (right) profile. Credits Les Forges
And finally, beyond the volume, there is the question of the muscles which are like the flying buttresses of your outfit, as long as you go dark and drapey, it is all the more important. Think of your body as a Gothic church with muscles as the framework. They give the body its shape, strength and support, much more than bones.
A duo of contemporary artists, Christo , exploits this theme throughout their work: their specialty is to wrap public buildings in fabric or canvas to study the way they fall (wrapping the Reichstag in 1995). Christo's works have no other goal than to create beauty. They have no function or message to transmit. Fashion is the same seen from this angle.
The Reichstag in Berlin, Summer 1995 collection.
Muscles important for style
The important muscles are those that you will generally develop in bodybuilding - basically all the muscles of the upper body, plus those of the thighs.
Either :
- the pecs , which determine how a t-shirt hangs;
- the deltoids (shoulder muscles), which shape the build you will have in a shirt or jacket (i.e. clothing with a structured cut, unlike a t-shirt which follows the curve of the body);
- the sternohyoids (neck muscles) which, more anecdotally, will simply determine your neck size and therefore whether you can fit into a shirt.
- the latissimus dorsi , these back muscles which give the rather imposing “V” effect.
The rest of the muscles (biceps and quadriceps) “sculpt” your dressed silhouette, but do not really have an impact on the way clothes hang. The important thing is therefore to work on them to give hold to the general silhouette, since they are the ones who will intervene in your volume effects (not in an unbalanced way either).
"Flayed" - muscular structure of the human body. Credit DeviantArt.
The different existing silhouettes
Now that you understand the structure of a body and how to play with it, let's get down to business with clothes - that's why we're writing this article after all!
There are three types of silhouettes:
- the fitted silhouette (i.e. dressing according to an ideal body shape), which is the basis for mastering the other two
- the loose silhouette , unlike the first, but which is not an alternative for large people.
- the mixture of the two , fitted/ loose or loose /adjusted, which works differently depending on body types.
Here, the loose bottom adds a little fantasy to the more fitted, and therefore more classic, top.
You understand that the body structure of a man and a woman works differently, particularly in terms of fat distribution, which is more to our advantage. Well, it's our turn to be in a weak position: women have a physical structure that is more suited to clothing!
Our thicker physiognomy makes all silhouettes more difficult to achieve, and confines men to a narrower range of clothing types, cuts and fabric shapes. At random, on a woman, skirt, long skirt, pleated skirt, dress, spindle dress, ruffled dress, harem pants, leggings,... And we're not talking about tops.
For men, pants + shirt/t-shirt. Knowing that women also wear pants, shirts and t-shirts, they have many more clothing options than we do. How can we find ourselves with so few resources?
Good news, there is still enough left, between dark trends, Scandinavian fashion, tailoring, workwear outfits , to have a little fun.
How to wear the loose fit or loose silhouette style
Confucian thought is based on the elements yin and yang, the “negative” principle and the “positive” principle, each of which contains a part of the other. In fashion, it's the same. Let's say, to extend the metaphor, that a perfect outfit can be defined in one word: balance .
Each element refers to another, it is inseparable from the whole. We saw this in the outfit above where the parka and the jacket form both a high-low gradation of proportions, in visible relation to the “visual spaces” of the outfit (the hollows which allow the outfit to breathe , i.e. the spaces corresponding to a head: bottom of the blouse and socks), but also a more subtle gradation in 4/3/2/1 if we take into account the hidden proportions of the two garments.
The idea of loose style is to wear silhouettes that leave you comfortable without giving the impression of having stolen your grandmother's shopping bag to make a t-shirt.
Loose allows you to test more natural sensations. In appearance, the proportions are not respected, but the good loose relies on an in-depth knowledge of anatomy and respects it to the limit more than fitted silhouettes, since it pushes it to its limits through conceptual reflection .
Example in pants: harem pants are often very ugly, because the crotch is located almost at knee level and unbalances the silhouette by not accentuating natural shapes (the cut is such that the largest volume of fabric often accumulates just above the calf).
The jodhpur has a fairly close cut but the volume of fabric around the thigh is less pronounced and, above all, it is very tight at the knee instead of being simply tight at the ankle like harem pants. Result: loose cut, but visually pleasant, because it remains within these aesthetic canons.
Oversized gray linen pants. Spring-Summer 2012. Credits Bruno Pieters
Good news, loose fits most body types, it's a good way to hide overweight. It is ideally suited to tall men with broad shoulders whose very built silhouette allows all this slightly gaping volume to be structured.
It is also interesting to use it as a counterweight to a more fitted top or bottom: for example, fitted shirt + jodhpurs, or on the contrary tight chinos + cardigan or oversized turtleneck. This also applies particularly well to summer looks: it makes you look more relaxed, and allows you to feel less hot.
The whole point is, always, to keep the silhouette balanced.
Example: if you are rather short and thin, wearing loose volumes on top will deconstruct your silhouette, while it is perfectly possible on the bottom. If you decide to wear sweatpants, consider balancing them at the top with a fairly long t-shirt or a shirt that, even if relatively loose, counteracts the excess volume on the thighs.
Very loose, very cool, small, it's possible (he's 1.66m). Credits Tommy Ton
More articles on body shape
Now you know almost everything there is to know about building a style according to your body shape. To find out more, you should probably take the plunge and become a stylist.
We wish you to develop beautiful deltoids and buy comfortable pants where you will feel comfortable.
Don't forget also our series of articles on different body types:
- How to dress well? (in general)
