THE REAL SECRET OF DRESSING TO LOOK SLENDER
“Reducing”—by no matter what method—is too often a snare and a delusion;
for even if, after all your efforts, you _do_ lose some weight, a little
indiscretion in your clothes will make you look as stout as ever.
How to select clothes that are certain to make you _look_ slender is the
most important knowledge a modern woman can have. Surely it is the most
important art in the whole field of fashion. And yet, many designers of
clothes for stout women do not understand its very cardinal principles.
Of course, they do design so-called “slenderizing stouts”—but you know,
perhaps all too well, what they look like. Their long surplice effects
and drab colors say as plainly as words, “I am designed for a stout” and
nine times out of ten they simply call attention to your stoutness.
Besides they are for matronly women—not for those who want to look young
and smart. It seems practically impossible to get youthful and
appropriate clothes for women who wear sizes over 38. Yet it may be only
necessary to change a neckline or remove an ornament or alter the line
of a sleeve in order to transform a “dumpy fat woman’s dress” into a
model of slender grace and youthful charm.
The whole art rests upon a certain scientific principle known to artists
and a few expert designers. It is called the Principle of Optical
Illusion, by which things appear to the eye to be different than they
really are. By understanding and properly using this principle, objects
may be made to _appear_ larger or smaller, taller or shorter. And by
employing this principle in dress any woman can be made to look older or
younger, shorter or taller, stouter or slenderer than she actually is.
For example, just as white shoes make large feet look much larger, so do
certain lines and colors make a large figure look a great deal larger,
while correct lines and colors and subtle touches give the effect of
slenderness, youth and grace.
Every stout woman has, some time in her experience, come by chance upon
a dress which seemed to make her look more slender and younger, and she
has worn and worn that dress almost to shreds, hating to part with it
because there was no telling when she would find another one to give
that same effect.
But there is no reason why you should trust to chance in selecting
becoming clothes. For if you know this simple yet all important
principle of optical illusion, you can plan or make or select every item
of your wardrobe with the certain knowledge that it will have a
slenderizing effect on your appearance.
You can know beforehand that _every_ dress, _every_ coat, _every_ hat,
every garment you wear will be designed to give you height instead of
width, youth instead of matronliness, slenderness and grace instead of
heaviness. It doesn’t matter whether you buy your clothes ready made,
have them made by a dressmaker, or make them yourself—you can _always_
know just what to select to make your particular type of figure look as
slim and well proportioned as possible.
[Illustration:
The two vertical lines are exactly the same length—measure them and
see. Short lines turned back at either end make one _seem_ short;
extended lines make the other seem longer.
]
[Illustration:
These two illusions are almost duplicated in the dresses above. As a
result one woman looks shorter and heavier, the other taller and
slenderer than she really is.
]
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS—SEEING IS BELIEVING
You yourself are familiar with many optical illusions, although you may
never have thought of them as such. When you look down the railroad
tracks the rails appear to come together in the distance. No matter how
much you tell yourself that the rails do not actually come together, the
fact remains that they _appear_ to do so. If you put the end of a stick
in water it _appears_ broken, although you know that in fact it is not
broken.
The eyes in a certain portrait seem to follow you, no matter where you
may go in the room in which it is hung. This illusion persists, no
matter how much you may tell yourself that the eyes do not actually
move. When you are on a moving train it is only by the constant
succession of passing trees, posts, and landscape that you realize you
are going forward. When these objects are shut off from your view by a
train going in the opposite direction, you seem to be going backward. Or
if you look at a moving picture taken from the front of a rapidly moving
train or motor launch, it is difficult not to get the impression that
you are rushing forward.
All of these are optical illusions, yet we do not think of them as
illusions. They represent the natural and the normal and we make
allowances for them.
The laws of illusion are more easily understood, perhaps, by means of
simple lines than any other way. You will grasp them quickly by studying
the various figures which illustrate this chapter.
Let us take a simple example to begin with having directly to do with
the use of straight lines in dress. You have probably read a thousand
times and heard a hundred times more that stout people must work for
straight line effects and the straight line silhouette. But it is one
thing to know this fact and another actually to accomplish it in your
clothes. You can’t just hang a straight line down from the shoulder like
a carpenter’s plumb on a door sill. You must know just where and just
how to apply the straight line. You must learn to use straight lines so
that they blend in with your costume—so that they give the desired
effect without calling attention to the means by which it is achieved.
[Illustration:
These unbroken parallel vertical lines give the definite impression of
height. This principle, used in the design of the dress above, lends
it a pleasing slender appearance because no other lines interfere
with the straight line effect.
]
[Illustration:
Here, also, are two vertical parallel lines. They are straight—test
them—but the other lines radiating from the center, make them appear
“bowed.” In the dress above a similar design makes the wearer appear
stouter and heavier than she really is.
]
LINES THAT SLENDERIZE AND LINES THAT DON’T
It is a popular theory among folks who would dress to look slender that
stripes running up-and-down are the thing to wear, while stripes running
across are to be avoided. This belief, like many another old-fashioned
one, is only half true. For instance, it is true that if the up-and-down
stripes in your material are very fine and unobtrusive they _will_ have
the effect of making you look taller and slimmer. This, however, is not
at all true of broad stripes or of stripes in a definitely contrasting
color—quite the contrary, in fact. Pronounced stripes merely call
attention to themselves and do not create the illusion of slenderness
which is desired.
But this is only one of many points to be taken into consideration when
you plan a dress with stripes or with straight up-and-down lines of any
kind. For instance, the illustrations on pages 18 and 19 show two
up-and-down lines of exactly the same length. Take your ruler and
measure them to convince yourself. Now note the effect on these lines of
the shorter lines added to each end. The inverted arrows added to the
line at the left make it appear _shorter_ than it really is. The
extended lines added to the one at the right make it appear _longer_
than it really is. Now note the two costumes on these same pages in
which these principles have been applied. In the one shown on the left
the figure looks shorter and stouter than it really is, while in
designing the dress on the right the correct use of the optical illusion
has been observed and the result is a slender, graceful appearance. You
can readily see from these pictures how a straight line effect can be
either accentuated or shortened by the lines that run out from it.
There are many ways in which a stout woman who does not know this
principle can easily ruin the effect of a costume. For instance, a woman
who wears a perfectly straight up-and-down dress of quite correct lines
may put a large mushroom shape hat on her head and perhaps a band of fur
around the bottom of her skirt. This has precisely the same effect as
the arrows which are turned the wrong way and therefore shorten and
widen the straight line.
“I cannot understand why I look so short and dumpy,” she wails
despairingly. “My dress is made on perfectly straight up-and-down lines
and yet I look fatter than ever.” Of course she does, because instead of
_extending_ the straight up-and-down line by a small upturned hat of
some sort and an unobtrusive skirt hem, she has broken the line at the
top and bottom and thereby shortened and widened her appearance.
[Illustration:
These two diamond-shaped figures are exactly the same size. The
crosswise line makes one seem wider, the vertical line makes the
other seem narrower.
]
[Illustration:
Now note how these same principles used in the dresses above effect
the apparent size and weight of those wearing them, making one seem
much stouter than the other.
]
A SIMPLE TRICK THAT TAKES OFF TWENTY POUNDS
Another point to be very careful about is the matter of _uninterrupted_
straight lines. For instance, the small diagrams on pages 22 and 23 show
two pairs of perfectly straight up-and-down parallel lines. This is
probably hard for you to believe, since the lines in the right-hand
figure seem to definitely bulge outwards. However, careful measurement
with your ruler or a pencil will prove to you that the lines actually
are as straight as those in the figure on the left. These latter,
however, _appear_ straight because they are uninterrupted and unbroken.
Those at the right _appear_ to bulge outwards merely because there are
so many radiating lines running through them.
Applying this principle to clothes, you can easily see that the tall,
slender effect you hoped to gain by the straight up-and-down lines of
your costume may be entirely ruined if you apply trimmings of any kind
which radiate outwards toward these lines. The dresses shown on pages 22
and 23 will prove this to you. The woman at the left with her
uninterrupted, harmonious, gracefully flowing up-and-down lines looks
taller, slenderer, more dignified and in every way more pleasing than
the woman at the right, the radiating lines of whose gown make her
figure seem to bulge outwards in a most discouraging manner.
Another striking example of optical illusion showing one reason why some
look stouter than they really are is shown in the illustrations on pages
26 and 27. As in the previous examples, the two figures (diamond shape
figures in this case) are, by actual measurement, exactly the same size.
The horizontal line across the one at the left, however, makes it appear
much wider than the one at the right with the vertical line through the
center.
Now study the clothes of the two women which illustrate these illusions.
Both women are holding their arms so as to give their figures a sort of
diamond shape. The one at the left, however, by her broad, drooping hat,
her large, bulky fur stole, the large-figured material of her tunic, and
especially by the horizontal, or nearly horizontal lines of her neck,
her girdle, and the band of fur on her skirt, gives herself the
appearance of conspicuous stoutness.
[Illustration:
The middle lines in the two small diagrams are the same length. But on
the left, shorter accompanying lines seem to shorten the one
between. On the right longer accompanying lines seem to lengthen the
one between.
]
[Illustration:
Now see how the woman at the left has unknowingly emphasized her
stoutness while the one at the right has properly gained a slender
effect by using trimming in accordance with the principles of these
optical illusions.
]
On the other hand, the woman at the right has designed her costume
entirely on the principles of vertical lines. The tall hat with its
appropriate trimming, the long, simple lines of her collar, her
neck-piece, the row of tiny buttons down the front of her dress, and
indeed the lines of the dress itself all conspire to give her the
appearance of height, smartness, and slenderness.
MAKING YOURSELF TALLER THAN YOU ARE
By the illustrations on pages 30 and 31 you may learn the value of
emphasizing a long line by the trick of placing it between two longer
lines rather than between two shorter ones. As in the previous examples,
the middle line in each figure is identically the same length. The one
at the left, however, appears much shorter than the one at the right,
because of a suggestion contained in the parallel lines which surround
it.
In the dresses illustrated here, this principle is strikingly applied.
The _short_ vertical bands of trimming in the figure at the left make
the center band seem _shorter_ than it really is, whereas, the _long_
vertical bands in the figure at the right make the center band seem
_longer_ than it really is. Thus, by the application of this seemingly
unimportant trifle, the woman at the right seems slenderer, taller, and
smarter than the one at the left.
LINES THAT SLENDERIZE TUNICS
Just one more example. The figures on pages 34 and 35 show how a longer,
slimmer effect may be created by parallel lines _emphasizing_ an oblique
or slanting line. In the figure on the left the plain oblique line seems
much more horizontal and wider than it does in the figure on the right
where the same line, actually on the same slant, seems much longer and
more graceful because of the parallel lines which break it and thereby
emphasize its length.
This effect is gained by using the simple principle of optical illusion
shown in the small diagram on page 35. The line running down from upper
left to lower right is actually straight—test it and see. But the two
perpendicular lines which break it cause it to seem to drop faster than
it really does. This gives the effect of greater height and less width
to the entire figure.
[Illustration:
Note the diagonal line in the opposite diagram. It is actually
straight, but the vertical lines which break it give it a
“going-down-steps” appearance. This principle is used in the dress
at the right—the two vertical panels of trimming break the line of
the tunic and give the whole figure a more slender appearance than
in the figure above.
]
[Illustration]
Dresses planned with this principle in mind will surely be more
successful in their slenderizing effect, as you will see by these
contrasting illustrations. The oblique line at the bottom of the tunic
in the dress at the left seems almost horizontal and much wider than the
same line in the figure at the right which is made to seem longer and
more graceful by the parallel vertical lines of embroidery which
intersect it and so emphasize its appearance of length and grace.
APPLY THESE RULES TO EVERY ITEM OF YOUR ATTIRE
There are dozens of other tricks which our eyes play on us which must be
taken into account by women who want to look slender. A very careful
study, therefore, of the optical illusions in this chapter will repay
you many times in the matter of line, cut and pattern of every dress,
wrap, hat, and pair of shoes that you buy. You must see that the facts
of illusion may either work to produce an appearance of bigness or one
of smallness. Every suggestion in this book is written with the idea of
applying these essential principles of optical illusion to your dress—of
producing in every case the slenderest possible effects.
SECRETS EVEN THE SLENDER WOMAN MUST KNOW
Not only very stout women, but moderately stout women, and even slender
women should also bear these principles in mind, for even the slender
woman can lose all the advantage of her slender silhouette and may
actually appear stout by failing to dress in accordance with these
optical illusions. An ill-chosen or badly-designed gown or wrap may
easily give her the appearance of being many pounds heavier than she
really is.
When you yourself begin planning your clothes according to these simple,
though magically effective rules, you will very soon begin to find real
artistic pleasure in your clothes, to say nothing of the improvement in
your appearance. I am certain that you will feel about it as I did, that
here at last is the only real and permanent way to look slender. For
even though by strenuous efforts you are able actually to reduce your
weight, it is not pounds, but appearance, that counts. You may know what
the scales say, but other people will weigh you with the eye. Dress so
you look slender and you can stop worrying about your size and weight
and be as healthy, happy, and attractive as any of your slender friends.