I always hesitate when these Kibbe threads take hold of the forum because I find it disheartening how his ideas get turned into just another “which box do you fit into” system. Thanks, Suz and L’Abeille, for giving the thread a bit more context about the point Kibbe was trying to make in his book.
I think Kibbe’s ideas can be a useful jumping off point for women who do not fit easily into the Scarlet Johanssons and Marilyn Monroes images of feminine beauty. As a young woman, the prevailing style guidelines had always directed me to find ways to remodel my angular, sharp, IT shape to camouflage and soften my “flaws” and to dress to “balance” my shape so as to look more like an hourglass. Reading Kibbe was like a breath of fresh air. His idea of celebrating my angularity instead of trying to soften and re-shape it offered a much more interesting, and positive, way to dress.
A couple of note of interest: Kibbe used Hollywood “stars”, not celebrities or models, to illustrate his different images of feminine beauty because those “stars” of the 40s and 50s had been carefully groomed by the Hollywood machine to present very distinct, defined feminine images to their fans. Katherine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Vivien Leigh, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn, and Joan Crawford were all deemed to be “lookers” in the eyes of the public—but they were all staged to be very different creatures. Once their “look” had been created by the studio, it was expected, as “stars”, that they would always dress to uphold their image when in public. Kibbe thought the constant nature of these images would make it easier for women to learn about his archetypes. Celebrities and stars of today are much harder to pin down into Kibbe archetypes.
Kibbe also used labels like Dramatic, Gamine, and such to help solidify his archetypes, although in later years he did regret using these terms because they were too often associated with clothing styles instead of the defined celebrity image. A dramatic outfit can be worn by any of the Kibbe types, but a Kibbe Dramatic would not wear the same outfit as a Kibbe Gamine if both were following his guidelines.
In his latter years, Kibbe also tried to distance himself from the multiple quizzes and reinterpretations which flooded the Internet. He suggested that a woman ought to have an instinctive attraction to the archetype which represents her body’s lines. The scoring is just a preliminary way of determining if a woman veers towards Yin, Yang, or is a midpoint balance of the two. He surmised that most women would be on one side or the other of the spectrum, but that for some woman, it would be easier to think of themselves as in the middle. He was also dubious of having untrained eyes categorizing a woman since there was so much misinterpretation of his archetypes.
I think, for me, Kibbe seemed to offer a more positive way to think about the role the lines and proportions of our bodies can play in helping us find ways to dress ourselves. Instead of giving us another “Do and Don’t” approach, I think the best part of Kibbe is how it can can get us thinking more about how to work with our distinctive shapes to celebrate our uniqueness instead of always trying to emulate a very narrow ideal of feminine beauty.
Edited to Add: For what it’s worth, I suspect that, like L’Abeille, I fit into Kibbe’s Flamboyant Natural category but my facial features are definitely Dramatic. Somehow following the Dramatic category feels more “right” because those guidelines harmonize my face with my body, Instead of worrying about which category, I’ve found that focusing on my “yangness” has been the biggest game changer in my style evolution.
