Body Types

What Is My Body Type?

Describing the shape of your body helps us personal stylists offer guidance around what type of clothing suits you best.

Whether we like it or not, our BODY TYPE has a huge part to play in defining our personal style.

We’re not going to wear sleeveless tops all the time if we don’t like our arms, are we?

Benefits of Understanding The Shape of Your Body

A mind shift – identifying your best bits helps see yourself positively rather than criticizing the worst, see a client visual makeover diary here
Increases body confidence
Knowledge is power
Clothes can then help to highlight or conceal
Understanding what clothes & design details flatter you when shopping saves time & effort
Acknowledging that you can’t always wear what your friend wears but instead find styles that flatter YOU
Avoiding costly mistakes when buying clothes
Accepting that sometimes alterations are necessary
Aligning yourself with a similar sized celebrity or blogger for inspiration

Image from Fashionopolis via Pinterest

"I see lots of non-size 10 people looking awesome and I wanted to be that person, and now I am! I now know where to shop, what to look for, as well as what to avoid. This process was LIFE CHANGING"

"I had NO idea what to wear or where to shop. Within a few hours Kim had completely kitted me out with a new wardrobe full of my most flattering bright colours I love, that mixed and matched that would take me anywhere, I had no idea it could be that easy! I now know what brands to shop at that fit my PETITE FIGURE. THANK YOU!"

"After having 2 babies and gaining 30kgs I had no idea how to dress my new body and felt completely depressed – I couldn’t even bring myself to look in the the mirror. I was especially dreading going back to work after mat leave and having to look professional. Then along came Kim and it was COMPLETELY LIFE CHANGING"

Body Type Analysis

Click here to read more about my body shape analysis service to help you make the most of your figure and check out my portfolio for how I’ve transformed my clients using simple strategies you can try too.

How To Dress For Your Body Shape

Google ‘how to dress an apple body shape’ and the fashion advice is generic, generally for a larger apple body and they don’t take in to account body proportions (discussed below), lifestyle or personal style!!

In fact, a slim apple shape should wear quite different things to a rounder apple, that’s why obtaining PERSONAL style guidance around what is right for YOU is vital, read on…

Types Of Shapes

There are different ways to define different body types, ie. geometric shapes or ‘fruit’, but they all reflect the same theory.

Click to hear from other delighted clients!

Female Body Types

All women fit in to these 5 body type categories but in my experience, many can straddle 2 and that’s when it gets very tricky when a client asks ‘what is my body type’ as it’s not so clear cut. I’ve worked with an ex-model who struggled to dress well because she couldn’t work out what physique she had… until I told her she had a combination of 2!

I asses body type horizontally AND vertically

Read my descriptions below plus click on my PINTEREST boards for outfit inspiration including WHY these garments suit that particular body type:

Different Female Body Types

HOURGLASS Body Type

(8.5% of women)

When shoulders/bust and hips are similar in circumference and your waist is significantly smaller

HOURGLASS Pinterest board

INVERTED TRIANGLE Body Type

(14% of women)

When shoulders/bust are wider than hips so you can tend to look top heavy or broad

INVERTED TRIANGLE Pinterest board

ATHLETIC / RECTANGLE Body Type

(46% of women)

When shoulders, waist and hips measure similar creating a straighter torso

ATHLETIC Pinterest board

PEAR / TRIANGLE Body Type

(20% of women)

When hips are wider than shoulders so you can tend to look bottom heavy

PEAR Pinterest board

APPLE / OVAL Body Type

(11.5% of women)

When you carry your weight over your tummy area but with narrower shoulders and hips

APPLE Pinterest board

Now, we could get caught up in specific measurements to calculate exact ratios between hip & bust etc, but to be honest, it all gets a bit technical so I like to keep it simple, however if you don’t identify easily with one of these, read on…

Want to understand YOUR body type? Then give me a call or book an online session

How To Identify Your Body Type

So if you can’t identify yourself easily through the imagery, then take a tape measure and note down your measurements to help categorise the shape of your body.

It’s about understanding the fullest part of your body, compared to your narrowest.

It’s also really interesting to do this as often it can yield different results than what you might think.

Body Type ‘Blockages’

Many of my clients wrongly self diagnose their body type, when people have lost weight and struggle to re-identify themselves for example, or maybe a childhood hang up follows us in to adult hood? We need to strip back and start again as a lot of the ‘rules’ that used to block us when deciding what to wear, no longer apply

Body Proportions

Now, to throw a complete spanner in the works, body SHAPE is not the only factor, BODY PROPORTIONS is the other KEY driver of why you will look good in some styles versus others.

This can include a long body or long neck/sloping shoulders which would mean that your physique is slightly out of proportion and would benefit from certain styles.

Petite Body Shape Personal Shop

Book in a PERSONAL SHOP to find clothes that flatter YOUR body type here

Other Different Body Types

We also need to address the following groups of ‘non-standard’ sizes:

Petite : under 5ft 3″
Tall : over 5ft 8″
Curvy : over a size 18*

*Concerning as the average Australian dress size is 14-16, so categorising plus-size to start at size 18 isn’t representing a typical Aussie woman as *plus* sizes should be starting around a 20-22!

So you can see that the subject of body types can get quite complicated for some, although not all, for some it’s quite straight forward as they will look good in most styles and this is where the science stops and the art begins as personal style takes over in the decision making.

That’s why my bespoke body shape summary gives you exactly the right guidelines for YOUR body type AND your personal style.