Summary: How do you know which pants and jackets suit your body shape? This article shows the two kinds of trapezoids a hip can make, what each one means for pants, skirts, and jacket length, and a test you can do in leggings to see yours.
What Your Body Shape Tells You About What to Wear
Common body shape sorting names a woman an hourglass, pear, apple, or rectangle, based on the proportions of her bust, waist, and hip. Principles of art composition give a different set of options, and this article looks at one piece of it: hip shape.
Where the width sits on your body shape tells you what to wear.
Art composition gives us the trapezoid, a simple shape that sorts body shape by where the width sits. Two answers follow from it: the shape of your pants or skirt, and where your top or jacket ends. Those two answers take the guesswork out of getting dressed and leave your attention free for the other things that matter to you.
The Two Trapezoids Created by Your Hip Bones
A trapezoid is a cross between a rectangle and a triangle: a triangle with the top chopped off. It is a set of parallel lines with angled lines on either end, and either the top line or the bottom line is shorter. Applied to a body, it describes your pelvis, the bones that create your hip shape.
If the hip bone directly below your waist is wider, that is a high hip. You have a shelf just below the waist, wide enough to set groceries or a baby on, and you are wider there than at the thigh. The shape angles toward your feet.
If the bone at the top of your thigh is wider than the bone just below your waist, the trapezoid is wider on the bottom. That is a low hip, and the line keeps widening downward.
Both are completely normal and common, and if you weren’t looking for it, you probably never noticed it. A little less common, and also completely normal, is a straight hip, where the two are basically in line. That shape works well with straight pants and straight skirts, because they continue the straight line.
Answer 1: The Shape of Your Pants or Skirt
If you are wider on top with a high hip, you often have the appearance of long legs, whether or not your legs are long. Straight legs and tapered trousers follow the line from a little wider just below the waist to narrow at the ankle. That is the shape you are completing.
If your trapezoid is wider on the bottom, your widest point is at the top of the thigh. Wide-leg trousers and A-line skirts release space where the thigh is widest and complete the line your bone structure is already building.
Retailer descriptions of a garment vary with fabric and other variables, so trying it on shows you the line it makes on you. With my body shape, a barrel-leg jean looks like a tapered pant, and on some other people it has a lot more volume.
Answer 2: Where Your Top or Jacket Ends
With a high hip, wider on top, end your top or jacket at the narrower point, which is the low point. A longer jacket that ends where your thigh and hip meet works well.
With a low hip, wider on the bottom, a cropped jacket works better, something that ends at the high hip, like a jean jacket.
This works because a horizontal line draws the eye along it and creates a widening effect. Put that line in your narrow spot.
Rules or Guidelines
For the majority of people, and for anyone who wants getting dressed to be as easy as possible, these can be rules. If you’re looking for a uniform, you can skip the extra energy of following trends, owning a pair of pants in every shape, and wondering what top goes with each.
If you want to do something different, there is always an artistic way to be the exception. That makes these guidelines.
Why I Believed Something Was Wrong With My Body Shape
Your entire body shape is built using the lower part of your body as part of its shape.
My story: I think I was in second grade, or maybe only first. My sister and I took ballet and gymnastics. I remember the gymnastics teacher pointing out to my mom that I had extra padding at my upper thighs, implying I probably wouldn’t be a good gymnast.
I was little, and I became very self-conscious about my thighs. In middle school I skipped gym class to avoid wearing shorts. I believed for years that something was wrong with my body shape.
Then I trained as a personal stylist and learned the principles of art composition as applied to bodies. I learned that a low hip is a completely normal body shape for a woman.
What Your Eye Looks for in the Mirror
In the mirror, your eye looks for a recognizable and balanced shape across the entire body. I prefer the term triangle over pear because a triangle gives a sense of balance, and a pear brings a different feeling. I also like that all the body types are geometric shapes, with no mix of fruit and geometry.
Where This Goes Deeper
In my programs, Signature Style Foundations is one of the first things we do, and it is where you discover your silhouette. You get basic, easy, obvious guidelines for the best styles for your body shape, including several pages of line drawings of different styles showing what works best for your body type.
Discover Your Style DNA, my comprehensive year-long program, includes an Outfit Formula Style Guide. In it, I trace your actual silhouette and make custom sketches of outfit formulas that work for your specific body, such as where to end your hem.
Parenthetically, I also built something new: a free quiz to find your season, based on your energy. Take the quiz here.
How Do You Find Your Body Shape at Home?
Knowing your body shape is the most effective way to choose the right pants or skirt shape and where your top or jacket should end. Seeing your shape accurately allows you to see why certain items have always been your favorites. Then you can settle into your signature style and redirect your outfit-building energy to the good you’re here to put out into the world.
Here is something simple you can do this week to integrate these principles into your wardrobe. Look in the mirror while you’re wearing leggings, or lay a straight edge alongside your hip and see which direction it angles.
Reading about the trapezoid in this article gives you the idea, and applying it to the pants and jackets hanging in your own closet takes a closer look. A Style System Synthesis call is a collaborative conversation where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what’s missing, which closes the gap between the framework and your closet. Book one whenever it suits you.