32: Petite Proportions: Why Your Outfit Feels Off and How to Fix It

Have you ever put on an outfit where the top works, the bottom works, and yet somehow the whole thing still feels… off?

In this episode, Petite Style Coach Angela Foster breaks down one of the most important style concepts for women 5'3" and under: proportion. 

Because when the lengths of your separates are off, even good pieces can make you look shorter, wider, or more frumpy than you really are. 

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why some outfits fail on Petites even when each piece looks fine on its own
• The easiest way to find your visible waistline and use it to create more flattering proportions
• Simple fixes like tucking, cropped jackets, and monochromatic outfits that help you look more balanced and pulled together 

By the end, you’ll know exactly how to spot proportion problems faster and fix the outfits that almost work, but not quite. 

Prefer to watch?

Link to the video version

Resources Mentioned:
Petite Body Shape Quiz
Emelia Clarke Pinterest board

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever put together an outfit that should work? The top is fine, the bottom is fine, but for some reason, when you put the two pieces together, it just feels off. There are two very common and even better easy-to-solve reasons why this happens, which is exactly what we're going to tackle in this week's episode. Because being able to improve an outfit, or better yet, completely fix it is such an empowering feeling for petites and allows us to leave the house feeling confident and looking great. I'm Angela, your Petite Style coach, and when you're ready, let's dive in. Welcome to Inside Petite Style, the only podcast created exclusively for women 5'3 and under. You've built an incredible career. You've navigated all the crazy life changes. And somewhere along the way, getting dressed stopped being easy. Maybe your body's different or your role is different, and your closet, it just has not kept up. I'm Angela Foster, Petite Style Coach since 2018 and creator of the Spark Petite Style Method. And together, you and I will get your wardrobe back in shape. Every week we'll talk about why petite proportions require a different approach. Discover what actually flatters your body shape and works with your lifestyle. And get all the insider shortcuts on where to shop so you're not wasting hours scrolling or even worse, settling for good enough. This is about more than looking good. It's about walking into any room, whether it's a big presentation or client meeting, a family event, or heck, just Tuesday, and feeling confident, polished with a style as smart and savvy as you are. Let's get this style party started. There are two reasons outfits fail. The first one is that one of the pieces, either the top or bottom, isn't ideal for your body shape. So maybe for signature shape number fours and number sixes, it adds visual volume where you naturally have it and don't need it. Or for signature body shape number threes, maybe the top and bottom adds volume to both in the same outfit, which usually turns an outfit frumpy and is best avoided. Now, in case you're new here and aren't familiar with body shape three, four, or six, first of all, thank you so much for stopping by and welcome. And as soon as this episode wraps, you'll want to hop on over to insidepetityle.com and take the petite body shape quiz. Because knowing the styles and the silhouettes that flatter your individual body shape best is the basis for all great petite style. Not to mention knowing the ones that don't that we should stay away from, makes getting dressed so much faster and so much easier in the morning. Now, in case you're thinking, I already know my body shape, I'm gonna go ahead and skip the quiz. You may want to reconsider because we look at body shape differently around here. You are not an apple, a pear, or anything else that goes into a fruit salad. You're also not a circle, a square, or any kind of inverted triangle nonsense. Now, the quiz lives full time at insidepetitstyle.com. It's super fast, it's only seven questions and takes less than two minutes. To keep it simple, I'll also add the link to the show notes so you don't have to hunt it down. Now I mentioned body shape first because right after you have a handle on that comes the second reason outfits fail. And that is because the proportions are off. And that's the specific challenge we're gonna solve today. Proportion can mean a lot of things in relationship to petite style, the size of a handbag, the chunkiness of our shoes, and on and on. But in this context, we're talking about the actual length of the separates when we're pairing and putting together outfits. If you and I have been hanging around for any length of time, then you've likely heard the phrase we have less vertical real estate. So iffy choices that taller women can make and get away with can kill our style. Say the blazer's too long and boxy or the blouse is too oversized. A woman who's regular sized may be able to pull it off, but on someone our height, it makes us look shorter and wider. Just to clarify, this isn't about looking taller. Most of us are fine with our height, even enjoy being small, except when it comes to finding pants that are the right length. Most of us would also agree that we don't want to look shorter than we are because oftentimes that makes us look wider. So let's figure this out. You've likely heard petite advice before say, well, two-thirds of your height needs to look like it comes from your waist down to the floor, and a third of it should look for like it comes from your waist to the top of your head. Now, that's all fine and good, but when you're standing there in the mirror in the morning and you're trying to figure out what's wrong with an outfit, nobody has time for that nonsense. So there's a couple of things that you can do to make it faster and easier, especially when you're at a store trying on clothes and you're trying to figure out if a piece works or not. So the very first one is if you feel like your normal proportion, meaning you're not long-waisted or short waisted, then all you have to do is put your hands at the at your sides and then bend side to side. And that will be where your natural waist is. Now, if you feel like you're short waisted or long-waisted, then the best thing to do is to know where your visible waistline is. This doesn't have anything to do with where your real waistline is, but we're creating the illusion that your waist is where we want it to be in order to have that one-third, two-third proportion, right? So what you want to do is, I'm gonna step back just a little bit, make sure you can see all my cords. Okay, so you want to rest your arms by the side of your body and then bend your arm out to the side. And then you want to place your elbow at the side of your rib cage, and that will be about where your visible waistline is. Why that's important is because that's where we want the waistband of our bottoms to be, whether it be a skirt or a pair of pants or whatever. And it's also where we want the hem of our tops to land. Now, that's ideal. If your top is a little bit longer, shoot for the top of your hip bones and no lower. That will keep that one-third, two-third proportion. Now, if you don't believe me that this is the quickest and easiest fix my clients have ever experienced, we have pictures to back it up. All of the images that we're gonna talk about are from the Amelia Clark Pinterest board. And I'll be sure to put the link in the episode show notes so that you can take a look. I want to be clear, I am not picking on Amelia Clark at all. She has terrific style and it's continued to get better over the years. And like most of us, she's gone through some different style phases. So there's such a wealth of pictures to choose from. There were some really good, like before and after kind of examples. The other thing I wanted to note before we like jump into the actual like how we can improve and fix our outfits is that on some of the pictures, I added these white lines so that you could see how the color blocking cuts off her vertical line prematurely. In this specific instance, it's the bottom of the blazer where her um where her pants end, and then where the shoe color change happens. So the first thing that we can do in order to fix our outfit is to elongate our vertical real estate by using items that are the right length. So these two outfits are more or less the same. We have two different blazers, we have two different pairs of pants, and then we have the same flat shoes. You can see the image on the right, just by adding a cropped jacket instead of an oversized blazer, it really elongates her line and makes her look longer. The second thing that we can do is tuck our blouse in. You can see the image on the left, the hem of her blouse and at the middle of her thighs, it chops her length up in half. Whereas the picture on the right, just by simply tucking your blouse in, it helps really create that one-third, two-third proportion. So if it's possible, tuck your blouse. This is one of my favorites. And what she's done in the picture on the right is to create a column of color. And this is a great fix, especially for items that you may already have in your closet that you need to wear because you haven't had time to replace them yet, or just because you like them. You can see again a very similar outfit from the left and from the right. We have the oversized blazer, we have the pants, we have the white shoes with a like a little bit of a pointed toe. How much more flattering is the outfit on the right just by being monochromatic? The other thing I love about this is that so many times we think monochromatic and we default to black. Whereas you can see with the image on the right, that medium gray with the lighter silver coat, it really does a beautiful job creating that column of color and elongating her look. Whereas the green blazer, again, chopping her off at mid-thigh and then being able to see her waistband underneath and then the white shoes, we've effectively chopped her length up into three. She does columns of color, monochromatic looks quite a bit and really, really well. So I just couldn't resist adding this picture in. A very similar outfit, a boxy oversized blazer, not a ton of shape to it, but with that nearly matching dress underneath, how much more flattering that blazer turns. Another great way to create a column of color or elongating our length is by wearing an oversized duster or an extra long coat. You can see that the coat on the left is like an awkward length. It hits right at the widest part of her thighs, which we always try to avoid because that draws the eye right there. And then also the um ankle length pants and the black flats, again, just chopping up her vertical line in three different pieces. Whereas the outfit on the right with the coat, the matching dress underneath, and then the super savvy um pale pink pointed toe heels, all great. So these are all ways that you can fix outfits that you already own in your closet and tweak them enough so that they're flattering to your shape and to your height. Are you ready for this week's style challenge? Because listening to the episode is beyond great, and I'm so glad that you're here. And putting the petite tips into action is where your closet really starts to come together. So this weekend, pick an item that you like, but you haven't been able to make work the way you want it to. Then just try one of the tips that we talked about, like pairing it with a bottom that hits at your visible waistline, or tucking in your blouse, or swapping out the boxy blazer for a shorter version that you have, or maybe it's creating a monochromatic look. While you're here, follow the show so you never miss out on a petite style tip. Be sure to come back next week when we're gonna talk about the essential spring-summer wardrobe pieces every petite needs to have. Now, this isn't about trends, although we do talk about a few of those. This is about identifying those wardrobe gaps that makes getting dressed so much harder than it needs to be. Because once you fill in those gaps, your wardrobe works harder for you, so you don't have to. And that, my friend, is a wrap. Thanks so much for hanging out, and I will see you back here next week. Till then, have fun and stay stylish. Thanks for tuning in to Inside Petite Style. When you're ready to create a wardrobe that fits your height, flatters your body shape, and makes getting dressed fun and easy. Head over to insidestyle.com and take my free Petite Style quiz. You'll get personalized tips and strategies made just for your proportion and your height. And hey, you know that girlfriend who's always rolling up her sleeves and hemming her pants? Share this episode with her. She needs to know she's not alone and that there are real solutions. See you next week. Until then, have fun and stay stylish.