8 April 2009 – Two Dresses Take II, originally uploaded by academichic.
Sources:
- Black dress, black cardi, grey tights, grey wedges – all remixed.
- Red and white dress – thrifted.
Endnotes:
I’m layering two dresses again today, this time to create a decent skirt length for walking around campus among faculty and students. The red and white dress, although fine for summer days and social occasions, is a tad short for a more professional setting. But I present it to you as Exhibit A for today’s Proportions discussion. Voila the Empire Waist!
As I’ve noted before, I have little waist definition and my narrowest part is high on my midsection, as you can see with my silhouette:
The empire waist has long been a good friend to me, because it accentuates the narrowest part of my body and drapes right over the less narrow midsection below. Especially when I had gained the stereotypical ‘Freshman 15′ as an undergrad, the empire waist proved to be an old faithful to me when getting dressed. It still emphasized my slimmest part, while generously hiding my burgeoning apple shape from the bust down. It’s as if you were created just for me, little Empire Waist One … S.
And here is today’s outfit with a cardi, since it is too chilly for short sleeves. I employed A.’s creative dress tie tutorial to tie the attached dress belt around the outside of the cardi:
8 April 2009 – Two Dresses With Cardi, originally uploaded by academichic.
I have the same body type as you and have found that the empire waste is the most flattering style I’ve come across! It’s great to give the “girls” a little extra umph while keeping the focus off the mid-section.
S, you have just clarified something for me! I wore empire waists throughout high school when I was narrowest just below my bust, and looked great. But NOW, my true waist is smaller … so this style just masks it! HAH! Brilliant!
@Sal – glad to do it! :) A. and I have talked about this before, because she has such a tiny natural waist, that an empire waist totally hides that and is the opposite of flattering on her.
To me, this talking about fit and your body with (blog) friends, is great because it enforces the idea what everyone’s different and what looks good on someone, will not on someone else. But instead of finding fault with your body, you just have to find the right fit for you! S.
love this look
[...] this week, S. talked about how she uses an empire waist to define a waist and conceal her “muffinage.… I’m using a similar kind of construction today to do something completely different: break up [...]