Are you obsessed with finding your Kibbe Style Archetype?
Thousands of women around the globe are obsessed with finding their Kibbe style archetype. About ten years ago, I went down the rabbit hole too and bought David Kibbe’s Metamorphosis: Discover Your Image Identity and Dazzle As Only You Can. In this article, I rip a takeaway out of his system and relate it to how you can use separates strategically in your wardrobe.
Kibbe’s system has 13 image identities or style archetypes, from Dramatic (being the most yang) to Romantic (being the most yin), with Classic being very balanced yin and yang. I’m not going to give all the details of his system here, but give you some strategies. In the book, he has an entire system which applies the concept of yin and yang to one’s body and facial features and spits out a comprehensive list of recommendations.
This sounds and feels limiting, but I know it really is not meant to be. He and his wife are active in Facebook groups centered on his concepts and he has been very generous offering projects for people who are trying to self-determine their type.
Parenthetically, I have a style personality quiz based on what is important to you in your style, as opposed to your body type. Take the quiz.
How NOT to spend hours trying to decipher your Kibbe type
Honestly, tho, idk what to think about the HOURS women spend trying to decipher their Kibbe type. Here’s an alternative: you can do as one of my very first clients did. After I gave her her body type information and my recommendations, she asked me if I had any idea what her Kibbe type was. I was able to reverse engineer from my recommendations to a Kibbe type, which she resonated with but would never have gotten to using his methods.Â
If you want to save yourself all those DIY hours, check out my style discovery packages.
How your Kibbe Style Archetype uses separates
According to Kibbe, the use of separates is a distinctive of the artistic expression of each style type or image identity. I distilled his 13 categories down to these four flavors:
- The Dramatic is best in a powerful head-to-toe look, rather than mix-and-match.
- The Romantic combines soft, drapy separates in a blended – rather than contrasting – manner.
- The Natural type majors in mix-and-match, and appears matronly in an overly matchy-matchy look.
- Gamine use of separates creates a well-coordinated look with alot of animated detail.
I don’t really know how to translate the idea of gamine into something that makes sense today. In a very broad consideration of various style personalities or characters, gamine could fall into a pop look, edgy, contemporary. Basically it’s a youthful look worn by a woman, but with a boyish flair.
Also, I realize we need to address classics, In this quote from the book, Kibbe says, “Use carefully and sparingly. An obvious use of separates is counterproductive to your elegance. Make sure colors, textures, and prints blend together to maintain your smooth visual lines.”
Should you use head-to-toe outfits or a capsule?
I think I’ve mentioned this before. While the capsule wardrobe concept makes sense to me from a mathematical and theoretical perspective, for me, it never seems to work. There is always a combination that works the best. However, looking back over the five strategies here, I think the capsule could definitely work for the natural, and possibly for the dramatic and romantic, as well.
Personally, I relate most to Gamine and slightly to Classic, which I think are probably the least likely, in the style types presented here, to do well with a capsule or mix and match strategy. For the classic, they probably do best with head-to-toe outfits, and the gamine look just has too much complexity to lend itself to pure mix and match.
I’m gonna suggest that you intuitively know which of these strategies is best for you. If which suits you s not immediately obvious, your homework is to observe these five different ways of using separates, try some different ways of combining outfits, and see which suits you best.