Petite Fashion Don’ts – Video Dress Tips

Petite Fashion Don’ts from the Sharon Haver for About.com at Lord & Taylor New York Petite Video Series…

Looking for Petite Dress Tips? You’ve come to the right place!

Did you ever wonder exactly what it takes to not look like your are drowning in your clothes?

>> Check out our Petite Clothing Shopping Guide

In this installment from my petite style video series for about.com, I show you make makes a petite fashion don’t and what it takes to switch it out to create a gorgeous petite fashion do. Please watch…

Petite Fashion Don’ts with Sharon Haver- Dressing a petite frame with the wrong accessories can create an overwhelming look that distracts from your cute figure. Learn a few fashion don’ts for petites.


Hello, I’m Sharon Haver from focusonstyle.com and we’re here today at Lord and Taylor for About.com -and we’re going to talk about fashion don’t for the petite figure and how to make them right.

Petite Don’ts: The Broken Figure

Kathy is wearing a little black dress. And sometimes we want to accessorize a little black dress because it adds a little diversity to your wardrobe. So, she has a white belt which is nice and crisp and a large red bag. Now, that’s a great look, however, on a petite frame you want to keep the same look but you don’t want to break your figure by having such a wide belt. And you don’t want to drown such a large bag. So, what you want to do is keep the same look but switch it to a smaller scale. What we’re going to do is sit here, take a look, and switch it out to something that’s more in proportion and better scaled to her frame.

See, now we’re back and you can see that we have the same general look that we had just a moment ago, but the belt is very slim and the bag is just a tad smaller. So, it gives you a longer, leaner look.

Petite Don’ts: Enormous Glasses

Now, large frame glasses are in style right now, so Kathy might want to put on a pair like this. Now, we have these big white glasses and they’re really chic right now but on Kathy’s petite frame they look a little bug eyed. So, we’re going to do a really quick switcheroonie. Same general look, large frame, but smaller and more in proportion to Kathy’s figure.

Petite Don’ts: Overwhelming Prints

The other thing is, prints are in style right now, you may want to go for something that’s a big print in a scarf. So, what we’re just going to do is something like this, really dramatic, however, it’s really large it has a lot of different color in it and cut Kathy in half.

So, if you keep the same look, but we switch the polka dots in something that’s more tonal. It blends with her outfit and therefore will lengthen her figure and she’ll look less petite and a little more statuesque. The white narrow belt was nice and simple on the LBD but you might want to shooz it up a bit with a flower. So, something like this is really great and colorful but it’s still rather large for Kathy’s frame so, we can switch it out to something a little bit smaller which looks so much more interesting on her and creates a longer leaner look and is pretty and more in scale with her figure.

Petite Don’ts: Disproportionate Accessories

Stephanie is wearing a cute little summer look and hats are a great way to protect your skin from the sun. So she has a big floppy hat in sort of a nautical stripe. She has a large shoulder bag. She has kind of a hippy beaded bracelet and a large ring. Now, this is great she’s wearing a white T-shirt and everyone says that’s a great little canvas to build upon and so are jeans but for a petite frame there is just way too much going on here. All of her accessories are too large. The hat basically envelopes her head. Basically a hat like this only works on a very tall slender type of woman. The bracelet shortens her arm a bit and the bag is just a tad too big for her.

So, what we’re going to do is keep the same general look. Swap it out to something more delicate and to a smaller frame. Now we’re back with the same general theme of a summer hat, a interesting purse and a little bit of jewelry. But, it’s much more in proportion to a petite frame. We have Stephanie in a lovely little beige fedora which blends in with her face and doesn’t create any unnecessary heaviness on her top, so therefore it won’t shorten her.

Instead of that big grey bag, we have a beautiful bag in a bright color. Adds a little bit of accent to her wardrobe and is tiny. And also we have it going off the body which is really very big right now. But, it’s big in trend and small in scale. Which is perfect for a petite frame. We also swapped out the big ring. Which even though it was gorgeous was just way too big for her frame to something a little more simple and delicate.

And instead of the large ethnic bracelet what we do is we have a smaller one, that’s about the same feel but it’s a good inch narrower and therefore makes her arm look longer, so it’s scaled to her figure. And she looks great and cute for petite. And you always want to remember that the most important thing for a petite is scale to your figure frame. So, we have everything that looks basically the same but it is just scaled down a little bit to be slightly smaller.

What we also need to consider is something like an earring. If an earring is large you might want to go to just one down which is the same look but it’s better for a petite frame. Same thing with a necklace if you want kind of a long hippy look, it’s so long that it hangs off the table. This is great on a really tall girl. But you can get the same look with something that’s shorter.

To learn more please visit us on the Web at About.com.

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top