For this week’s look back to celebrate the 15th anniversary of FocusOnStyle online, let’s peek at my video about how to dress to look taller when you are a petite. While ‘ya looking, how abour my hair? I think my stylist was having a Jane Fonda in Klute moment. Enjoy! — S.H.
Petite Fashion Tips to Dress to Look Taller from the Sharon Haver for About.com at Lord & Taylor New York Petite Video Series…Haven’t you ever seen a celebrity or met someone in the flesh and said to yourself, “Gee, they seem so much smaller in person?”
Well, it’s not that they “seem” smaller, they know how to dress to look taller.
>>More: Petite Style Tips
In this installment from my petite style video series for about.com, learn the secrets to dress to look taller than you really are. It’s all about what to wear and what to avoid to create a taller and leaner appearance.
Watch the How to Appear Taller When You’re Petite video:
Dress to Look Taller with Sharon Haver
Different cuts can help create length and the appearance of height. See how petite ladies can appear taller by the way they dress.
Transcript: Dress to Look Taller
Hello, I’m Sharon Haver from focusonstyle.com, and I’m here today for About.com at Lord and Taylor. We’re going to talk about how to dress to look tall when you’re petite.
Suits to Look Taller
The first model is Stephanie, she’s wearing a really great office to evening black suit and it had clean lines – and it’s single breasted with just one button. Where if it was a boxier cut or double breasted it would make her look a little bit wider and see what we’re trying to do is create a nice long and lean line with a single button. The skirt is a slim skirt, it’s not a sausage skirt, it’s not a pencil skirt.
It grazes your body and it hits at a length which is pretty much universally perfect for most petite women. And that’s somewhere hovering around your knee. The other thing we did. We just rolled the sleeves up a bit, we just pushed them up and squished them up a bit for lengthening.
Dresses to Look Taller
When it comes to evening and you want a little something that’s va va voom, she has the best accessory for a body-con dress – and that is one hot body. And that is the best way to look tall. It’s one color. It has a little bit of an empire to it. So, it’s creating a look where your eye is going up and down. Straps are not too wide to be distracting and not too tiny and dippy where the shoulders look too big. They’re perfectly in proportion and it’s a beautiful open neck line.
Really the only thing we have here are fabulous open shoes and we create the long look with these bejeweled shoes. As they also sort of have that key strap in the front. They have that long lean line which you can use as jewelry. You don’t need more. And that really simple evening bag that’s tiny that she can hold and show off her body and look long, lean, tall, and gorgeous.
Maxi Dresses to Look Taller
Maxi dresses are a really big trend right now and for the most part it’s something that you would usually use for a taller girl. However, if the dress is still slim and creates that all important vertical line. It can look quite cute on a petite frame and what she is wearing is a very sweet maxi dress which is perfect for summer or a casual day. First of all it’s strapless. So we have an idea of just some skin which creates a little bit more openness obviously. It’s still very slim to your frame. Although it still has a kind of hippy freeness to it. But it’s still not big and lots of volume to it and make you look shorter and wider and it also has, along , guess what, vertical stripe. So it creates a much longer beautiful look.
We’ve decided to opt for a little straw hat which is perfect for the summer with the natural straw, which also compliments her face and doesn’t create anymore color blocking. And you can either opt for a cute little flat Or another look is a nice wedge an espadrille or a natural type wedge shoe, that will lift you up a little bit without looking to outlandishly high.
Suit Style #2
And, Stephanie, wearing a black suit. It has this gorgeous matte type of satin jacket. And the little lace skirt. The jacket has a really beautiful fitted line and it also has a slightly shorter sleeve which creates a longer line to her frame. A little bit of the detail down there and it creates a little bit of an interesting look and it draws your eye up and down. We wanted to add a splash of color. So we decided to add a belt, not too wide, in a bright shock of color to make it look a little less drab and we just chose not to wear a blouse to make it an open V look. With the open neckline, the shorter sleeve, the slim silhouette and the combination of textures, it’s a really beautiful polished longer line.
Thanks for watching.
>> Video and Transcript courtesy of About.com. Please see here for version.
Original Publish Date: August 26, 2009
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