The Capsule Wardrobe Mission: Flattering styles for the unique you

"... acceptance of your own body.
Whatever it's shape, it is healthy and it is yours."  
Caryn Franklin

Remember my post about my mission to create a compact capsule wardrobe? One night I sat in front of the TV watching Newsroom (I love Sloan in the show), and sorted out which clothes in my wardrobe to keep, and which ones to donate/throw, based on the body shape chart.

I'm a petite pear shape, which means most of my jeans has to be shortened at the legs. Speaking of jeans, it's almost always a nightmare for me to shop for jeans-- if the hip fits, the waist would be too big. If the waist fits, the hip would be too tight. Anyone else has this problem? The only time I bought jeans that I absolutely love was from Uniqlo, PLUS I discovered that they label their sizes 1 or 2 sizes smaller, which made me squeal in delight at first thinking I was on my way to becoming America's Next Top Model, and then sniggering "Ohhh you sneaky bastards."

I recently found Caryn Franklin's website and downloaded one of her free e-books (yes free! woop!) on dressing for YOUR unique shape. The book covers different styles of necklines, collars, skirt shapes, even jewelry and bags that are out there, and what works for your unique shape.

Each illustration is either marked with a tick (good for your shape), an "x" (not flattering for you), or a star (on the fence, depending on the actual garment variation).

Caryn writes in the introduction:

"Your best traveling companion through this e-book will be your acceptance of your own body. Whatever it's shape, it is healthy and it is yours. It is doing it's best to support you through the day with a myriad of clever functions that you take for granted. Sadly many of us aren't in touch with this and forget that, before it is a clothes-horse, it is a sophisticated biological miracle! Clothes then are the icing on the cake. Use them to celebrate all that you can be to yourself and others!"

I highly recommend for you to visit Caryn's site and download her free e-books. They're very well written and she's got all the shapes and variations covered (not many sites cover the petite pear combo), and perhaps we can learn together what flatters our bodies :)

Now, hopefully I can put together a capsule wardrobe like this from her site too...

Spring/Summer 2012 Capsule Wardrobe

Which combo do you like best from this capsule wardrobe? I'm loving the peplum cardi and the turquoise pants :D

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The Capsule Wardrobe Mission: Determining your body shape (or, How to get that hourglass figure without ANY exercise!)

Ok, ok, yes that blog post title was rather spammy, heheh. But it's not a lie! I've been following Gok Wan's tv shows recently, and I'm very inspired by him. Gok is a designer who goes round UK helping ordinary women take control of their wardrobe and style in his show Gok's Fashion Fix (I think the show dates back to 2010). One of his key lessons is that clothes are made for the typical mannequin hourglass figure, but not all of us have hourglass figures-- apparently only 8.4% of women do! (phew, now I don't feel that lumpy.)

Here's a clip of Gok at work in creating an instant hourglass shape on another of his show, How To Look Good Naked:



Another of Gok's (almost typed God there haha) fashion lessons is to create a capsule wardrobe of 24 items-- tops, trousers, skirts, dresses, shoes and bags that can mix and match with each other to create more than just one look. This doesn't mean that your wardrobe should only consist of 24 pieces, but it's a starting point in building a compact yet flexible, sustainable wardrobe.

His mantra is "Buy less, wear more". Get more mileage out of the pieces in your wardrobe that make YOU look great.

I'm now on a mission to create my very own capsule wardrobe. God (not Gok) knows that I've got way too many clothes from my thrifting and sewing adventures. I think it's time for me to take a step back and really evaluate which clothes are going to be part of this capsule wardrobe. It's time to weed out the  clothes that don't make me look like Salma Hayek (ok who am I kidding LOL /slaps self).

But first, I needed to know what body shape I am, right? Coincidentally, Ayu invited me over to her place for some body graphing exercise. Using the guide on Patti Palmer's Fit For Real People, we helped each other draw our body graphs.

That's me rockin' a breast pump tag around my neck (we didn't have a necklace to help determine the neckline haha), a raffia string around my waist, thinking of a pear. I got swag.

And yes, I'm a triangle a.k.a pear shape! Big booty, thunder thighs, tiny boobage, that's me.

Do you know what body shape you are? Here's a simple guide I drew, along with that coveted hourglass figure cheatsheet for each body shape:

Next step in my mission: Determining which clothes work for me, and to chuck away those that don't.

What about you, would you want to create your own capsule wardrobe too?

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