Fact or myth: horizontal stripes make you look fat

mayapple

Ok, my feeling is that if you are really slim and slender, nothing, including horizontal stripes, is ever going to make you look fat. In fact, if anything, they might help give curves to women who are on the straighter side. But what about the rest of us? I can't really decide what I think of them. Does the size of the stripes matter? The contrast of the colors? Or do they just make a not so nice topographical map? I really can't decide what I think of them.

17 years ago

Dressing

6 replies

Latest reply was from Sarah

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

The width of the stripe definitely matters and so does the contrast of the colours and the quantity of the colours. The additions of plain trims (collar, cowl neck, cuff and welt) can be important, and so is the shape of the neckline and the cut of the garment. Stripes are complicated but fabulous if you stumble upon the right one. Sometimes they work best as layering pieces. . They are a forever fashionable pattern and I am personally a fan.

17 years ago

Eva

Active Member

I think stripes can be fine, but as with any item, it depends on the width of the stripe and style of the outfit. I am amazed that some retailers still make mistakes on this in their clothing lines. For example, I think the first top linked looks fine, but the second top looks bad on the model. How could it possibly look good on a normal person?

http://www.anntaylorloft.com/c.....egory=Surf Blue&defaultSizeTypeFromCategory=Misses

http://www.anntaylorloft.com/c.....ory=Petite

17 years ago

Sarah

Active Member

Width and contrast definitely matter.

The bottom one that Eva posted would only look good on a girl with very broad shoulders, a huge bust, and a tiny waist and hips. It would smooth over my broad shoulders, but exaderate the difference between my tiny bust and not quite so tiny hips, and make me look like I have not waist.

All of that said, being a skinny person (5'2'' and weighing in at about 104 pounds), I have to say that we do not look good in all stripes. I have two striped shirts. One is long with small but even white and navy stripes, and makes me look like I have wide hips and no waist. The other is shorter (a few years old), so I lair it with a black tank. It is dark red with small white stripes and looks great. For me, the difference is that stripes that go over my hips make me look shapeless.

17 years ago

mayapple

Active Member

I used to love stripes but now I fear they just exaggerate my shape. They tend to stretch out over my chest and hips, but the top I'm thinking of has fat jailbird stripes, so maybe I just need thinner stripes and less contrasting colors.

Sarah, it still boggles my mind that we are the same height and nearly the same weight, yet you are smaller but wear a size bigger! So weird.

17 years ago

Nicole

Veteran

Sarah, that second AT top wouldn't look good on a women with a full chest. The only body type that would look good in that top, is that of a pre pubescent girl. Busty women don't wear stripes well, especially horizontal stripes--but even vertical stripes can be dangerous on a bust line. The strips only look good if they stay straight. When the stripes start to curve around the shape of a bust, they look weird.

I love stripes on a hanger, and I like them on *some* people...but not many. Sometimes the color contrast hurts my eye and it can appear that the stripes are actually moving. That really freaks me out and gives me a headache.

Stripes are going to make any body part look wider than it really is. So, if you want a part of your body to look wider, then it's a good way to accomplish that. But for me, I'll keep my stripes to accessories that are carried or worn far far away from any part of my body.

17 years ago

Sarah

Active Member

I love one of my two tops with vertical stripes, but don't think I'd buy another unless I tired it on and loved the way it looked. I have seen other people look great in stripes, but only a very few people.

Maya, the reason most of my clothes are bigger than yours is because I used to buy my clothes very baggy. It was a part of the culture I grew up in. It’s also probably a part of the reason I’ve always thought I was fat; I look bigger in bigger clothes. Now I'm trying to fix that a little at a time. I'm starting to buy tops in XS instead of S and pats in 2 or 0 instead of 4 or 6 (or even 8).

Sorry Nicole, my mistake about the top. The reason I thought it would look good on a busty lady is because it made the model look like she had almost no bust. I'm smaller than her, so it would make my bust look even smaller. The wider stripes on the bottom half of the shirt make her waist and hips look wider than her bust and shoulders, so I assumed it would look good on a busty inverted triangle and sort of balance out her siluette. I certainly could have been wrong. It might not look good on anybody!

17 years ago