Short People

Considering that I reach a towering 4’8” I imagined that this post about dressing short women would be bordering on mindless for me.  But as a very close male friend of mine pointed out, men have body image issues too.  As I began to research how to dress short men, this problem became increasingly apparent.  Not only do men also have body image issues, but they have fewer options.  While fashion advice directed toward women at least sometimes focused on emphasizing positive body features, men’s fashion advice seemed to boil down to how to fake your body into looking like the tall lean muscular v-shaped ideal.  The concept of embrace yourself didn’t exist in men’s fashion, as far as I could tell.  Thus men are left with the options of, obtain the desired male build, or don’t bother trying to be fashionable.  While less emphasis is appearences for men than women, the range of male bodies that are considered attractive is much narrower.  Men face their own set of pressures pertaining to their appearances, however unlike women, they lack the privilege of being able to admit to insecurity. This may arise from how men are typically discouraged from revealing any insecurity, or from how body image issues are simply assumed to be 'woman’s problems'.  Body image issues are certainly not only a 'woman's problem' though.   Statistics about men with unhealthy body image issues vary widely due to limited research and understanding.  Those statistics that I could find indicate that 10 million American men, and 20 million American women will have an eating disorder at some point in their lives.  Despite men being a significant portion of the population with eating disorders, male body image is studied much less than female body image.  A 2011 study showed that 40%-60% of elementary school girls fear they are getting too fat.  However the National Eating Disorder Association itself failed to provide a matching statistic on elementary school boys.  The time has come to actually address male body image issues, and undermine the stigma associated with them, only then can they actually be dealt with.  So today, we will include men in our discussion of body positive ways to dress.

Honestly, I love being short, it allows me to quickly move through crowds, and ensures that I can be in the front at any event without offending fellow spectators.  Despite what society may tell you about tall people being more successful overall, being short is neither a bad nor unattractive trait.  Unfortunately, clothing is designed for taller people and may often fit poorly or in an unflattering way.  Here lies the problem for short people, stubby, not short looks bad.   Clothing not properly scaled down just makes short people look stubby.  As long as you use clothing to assert that your body is indeed proportional, you will never appear short standing on your own, more importantly, you will not look stubby. 

Eli is feeling monochoromatic right now
he is also feeling like a proportionally sized
human being

For those of you presenting as men, you will want to keep material close to the body.  Excess material will make you look like a small child in his father’s suit, and it takes very little extra material for it to be excessive on your smaller bodies.  The solution is narrow cut clothing.  Dark slim cut jeans and dark colored corduroys with their subtle vertical stripes, are both slimming and lengthening.  Again you do not need to be taller, but you do need to invert the illusion of stubbiness that comes with a small body.  Aim for pants that fit higher over the hip bone than ones you typically encounter, the slightly raised pant line gives extra length to your legs.  There is a rather disturbing trend of pants ending just above the ankle, do not venture down that path.  The reason you want a slim long pair of pants is because it allows you to utilize your entire height and actual body shape to show that you are perfectly proportional.  Clothing that breaks up the line of your body, such as pants the stop above the ankles break you into tiny stubby pieces.  You are certainly more than tiny stubby pieces of person.  Conversely make sure your pants aren’t so long as to bunch up at your ankles, this screams to the world “my pants are too long because I am small.”  

The bright v neck shirt and dark pants
call attention to Eli's torso, which is
floating some undisclosed distance
above the ground

Moving up to the torso you will want to either continue the long vertical line you established with your pants, or  call attention to your upper body with brighter colors or small prints.  The bright colors will draw the eye up away from the ground and show off your appropriately proportioned torso.  If you are into prints, make sure to wear small ones.  As you are smaller than most, you must scale down the size of everything, including the patterns you wear,  to avoid looking like your clothing intends to devour you.  If you prefer to rock a sleeker look by continuing the long lines you established with your pants, opt for a matching or complimentary dark shirt.  Some interesting dark colors to wear when monochromatic black and grey get boring are, ox blood(dark red), mustard (dark yellow), Navy and Olive (dark yellowy green).   Vertical stripes are a given option; I shouldn’t even have to mention this, but try to wear subtle ones if you opt for vertical stripes.  Many people know vertical stripes are meant to create the illusion of height, so they may ‘catch’ you trying to look taller.  Shirts should be a light material, again too much material is bad.  Button downs, and v necks are best.  

Here is a rare excuse to add bulkier material.  The white
stripe provided by the shirt under the button down creates
a lengthening vertical line, in spite of the heavy material
in the flannel.

If you are cold, or wish to wear light colors once in a while, you can wear an open dark slim cut jacket with a light shirt underneath.  This creates one long line through your torso that elongates you, it can also be slimming if you desire that effect as well.  If you want to wear a sports jacket or cardigan, look for ones with fewer buttons and only do the bottom ones, this will make your torso look longer and call more attention to it.  Aim for jackets the closely match the color or hue of your pants to maintain the long vertical line you had been working so hard to create.  

Isn't he snazzy with his bright collar
peeking out to say "Hello, I am on a
proportional person!"

If you want to wear snazzy accessories like scarves, wear them somewhat loosely so that they do not hang close to your neck, otherwise you get a stubby sad neck.  The scarf or shirt under your jacket can be the bright point in your clothing.  It will call attention to your gloriously proportional torso and secretly make the eye move upward.  For suits you need to adjust everything down to match your body.  Instead of leaving an inch of space between the lower end of the suit sleeve and the end of the shirtsleeve, leave half an inch of space here.  Instead of two inches of space above the ankles, only leave one.  Opt for the skinny suit and skinny tie if you are built for it.  If not just make sure your blazer matches your pants and falls just below your butt.  Avoid bow ties and visible belts and they break you into little chunks.

The dark jeans and cropped jacket help me look proportional
even when trapped in a shopping cart.

For those of you presenting as women, there is less pressure to be tall than there is on men.  As with men you will benefit more from trying to look proportional than trying to look tall.  All of the advice to men still applies to you.  Wearing dark matching colors will make your body look long, allowing you to take full advantage of the height you have.  As with men, narrow cuts, minimizing excess fabric, wearing smaller prints, and putting brighter colors higher up on your body will all undermine the dreaded illusion of stubbiness.  Anything high-waisted is your friend because it raises where your legs appear to start.  This is especially useful for shorts and short skirts.  Shorts and short skirts are comfortable in hot weather, but break up your legs.  Opting for their high-waisted counterparts avoids this effect.  Conveniently miniskirts will typically not appear notably short on you because all of you is small.  People have the interesting tendency to think you are wearing longer skirts than you actually are, so you get a bit more leeway on wearing short skirts, while still appearing professional,  than your taller friends will.  In general, you want to stick to skirts and pants that reach to your feet, or those that stop at mid thigh, or even just above the knee in the case of business skirts.   Tea length skirts, capris and anything between mini and maxi length will break you up.

The high waisted shorts and bright scarf work together
to sassily restore my height and call attention upward.

The high low skirt adds legnth and
moves in an interesting way when you walk.

High low skirts can be good as long as the high part is actually very high and the low end reaches toward your feet.  Whether you are comfortable in high shoes is up to you.  I have a deep love of high heels and wear them a few times a week.  For those of you that want to wear heels, invest the money in a comfortable pair, and practice walking in them.  Walking will be much easier if you aren’t dying of pain the whole time, and you will look much trendier if you aren’t perpetually flat on your face.  You typically want to conceal the heels under a pair of matching pants or a matching skirt.  Nude heels, ones that match your skin tone will subtly restore length to your legs when you are wearing skirts and dresses that break them up.  Or course you can also just get awesome attention grabbing heels and show them off, they won’t create an illusion of length but they will still be fabulous, so it’s worth it.

No matter what you are wearing, it is important to invest in properly fitting clothing.  This may mean going to a taylor to get things hemmed differently so they fit properly.  Or it may mean buying clothing from the petite/ children's department.  You should not feel uncomfortable doing this, the clothing is likely cheaper than it would be in the adult department, and it may look better on you because it actually fits.  what matters is that you are happy with how you look, not where your clothing came from.

I hope this gave some of my fellow short people ideas on how to look awesome without pretending to be tall.  Let me know if you liked any of my suggestions, or send me pictures of you wearing my suggestions. 

Wide Legged Pants

Often, when new items become trendy, people wear them because they are trendy, without considering how the item fits their build and sense of style.  This runs counter to the concept of clothing as a form of self-expression, and often appears like a dedication to conformity as opposed to a dedication to the artistry clothing can offer. 

The mullet, a reminder that we should
always be a little suspicious of trends

Trends are a sort of evolving feed back loop.  Designers put out seasonal lines of clothing.  Beauty editors then attend many fashion shows, look for commonalities among the items put forward by designers, and decide what is going to be fashionable that season. They then write articles in fashion magazines advising ordinary people how to dress.  Approximately simultaneously designers sell their more promising or wearable items to retailers.  Which designs become trends or how long the trends last depend on the trends themselves.  Items that suit a wider range of body types, or that are more versatile tend to last longer, while more bizarre or restrictive trends tend to die out quickly.  Things that sell successfully will act as a starting point for the upcoming season, unless of course the market has become saturated with an item or particular style.  This may prompt a reaction against what had become common, and make the opposite of a fashionable item from the previous season be fashionable in the upcoming one.  Major events, celebrity style choices, or shifts in social attitude may also prompt a drastic shift in what is deemed stylish.  The point is, trends do not necessarily improve from season to season; there is nothing wrong with wearing ‘last year’s’ clothing except that now other people aren’t dressed the same way, and that magazines are not advising you to dress that way.  What is trendy has little to do with what looks good on you.  This year, instead of wearing what is in style because it is new and other people are, use the new ideas about how to dress to inspire your own style, and emphasize your inner self and your outer strengths.

The first trend I intend to discuss this year are wide legged pants.  You may have noticed that pants are getting bigger again.  After years of leggings, skinny jeans, jeggings, and every variety of ultra form fitting pants, the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way.  All the way back to the seventies when wide leg trousers were fashionable.  How are we to integrate this new option into our wardrobes which have likely evolved to accommodate tight pants?  Fear not!  The wide leg trouser offers many new and unique advantages.  Unlike skinny jeans, which focus on shape, the wide leg trouser emphasizes length and movement. The effect can be lengthening and some unique intersection of classy casual and chic depending on how it is executed. The long straight line of wide legged trousers add height and length to the legs.  If you really want to exaggerate this effect you can buy a pair that is a bit too long and wear a pair of heels underneath.  The trousers should reach about half an inch off of the ground and conceal the shoe you are wearing.  Understand however, that these trousers contain a lot of material, and can cause a widening instead of lengthening effect.  To avoid this, find wide legged pants that sit between your hips and waist, they should not cinch inward much at the waist if worn at the waist because the dramatic outward curve from the waist to the hips followed by the straight downward tumult of the pants will create an illusion of stubby thick legs, as opposed to towering graceful ones.  You can also consider wide leg pants with a bell bottom shape, this will maintain the movement and height of straight wide legged pants, while still showing some feminine curve in your legs.

The far right pants are wide leg pants.  Your legs will
appreciate the occasional breathing room these pants
offer.

These pants can look very professional when paired with a tucked in loose white or dark blouse and a blazer.  As these did emerge in the seventies we might as well stay consistent to the seventies and pair the trousers with a ruffled blouse.  

This woman contemplates her wide legged pants,
and how they pair well with a ruffled blouse.

For a more everyday look you can pair these pants with a form fitting tank top or sweater, and a statement belt (a statement necklace but on your stomach).  Wide Legged trousers are classified as resort wear, meaning they look leisurely and as if you are on decadent vacation, this translates to them being a fashionable version of pajama pants.  These pants are exceptionally comfortable, but not particularly warm, so they will become an excellent staple in the spring when the weather warms a bit. 

This woman actually is wearing pajama
pants to New York Fashion Week,
further proving wide legged pants are
the trend that every college student ever wanted
-- an excuse to wear pajamas to everywhere.

For a chic look you can pair bright or patterned wide legged pants with a simple, muted, or matching top, and one matching accessory such as a scarf.  This will call attention to your interestingly clad legs.  As these pants are so large and attention grabbing with how they flow when you walk, you will want to avoid excess fabric on your torso.  Blouses (even the slightly loose ones) and blazers should approximately fit your body shape.  Otherwise you will simply have lots of fabric everywhere, and look like your clothing is trying to eat you.

Most likely you want your pants to look like
this.....

....as opposed to like this, which is why
it is important to control the amount of
extra fabric you wear with wide leg pants....
Unless you want to look like this child,
in which case,  pile on the extra clothing 

Many of your staples from the previous year will still play nice with wide legged pants.  Form fitting cropped tops pair well with wide legged trousers, and look very bohemian if the pants also happen to be patterned. If all else fails you can treat these trousers about the same way you would treat a maxi skirt.  So tank tops, bolero jackets, scarves and statement necklaces are still kosher.  Wide Legged trousers have a slight advantage over maxi skirts because you are much less likely to get tangled in your pants or trip on them because each leg has its own hole.  Each leg having its own loose compartment also causes these pants to move in a dramatic way in which maxi skirts do not.

 

Unlike you, this girl is too confuse to appreciate the positive
effects of her wide legged pants.

Now go forth, and find ways to make these pants work for you.  Send me suggestions on how to best wear wide legged trousers this year, or pictures of how you wear them.