Jennifer Mackey-Mary: One thing we’ve talked about a LOT on this show is body shape. But, one thing a lot of women are still confused about is their body shape. Why is that? Why, with all the quizzes, classes, and podcasts out there, is dressing our body shapes still the thing women struggle with most? And what can we do to make it easier? I’ve got a theory, and that’s what we’re talking about today. Let's get started.

Hello gorgeous. Welcome back to the Everyday Style School, the show that teaches you everything your mom never did about getting dressed.  I'm your host, Jennifer Mackey Mary. After 25 years of dressing women with real bodies, budgets, and lives, I know great style isn't about following one-size-fits-all advice - it's about learning what works for you.

From my very first day working at Chico’s 25 years ago, I’ve been kind of obsessed with body shapes. That day, I was taught the 4 basic body shapes, and how to dress each one, and it changed the trajectory of my life. For me personally, learning why I struggled with clothes was an absolute revelation. It freed me from a lot of negative feelings I had about my body, and made it easy to finally find clothes I loved–that also loved me back. During my time there, I was able to give thousands of women that same gift–working with women who always thought they were the problem–and maybe if they just ate less and exercised more, clothes would be as easy for them as they seemed to be for others.  But it turns out, it wasn’t them, it was the clothes all along, and once they knew that, style became easier, and more fun.

When I started my own styling business, I called it Apple & Pear wardrobe–an homage to body types–built around teaching women how to find clothes that worked for their bodies. I’ve given countless presentations about body shape, recorded I don’t know how many podcast episodes on the topic, and created a comprehensive course teaching women HOW to use clothes to dress their unique shapes.

And I know I’m not alone–there are entire businesses dedicated to the topic, a million blog posts, countless quizzes…you name it. Finding information on how to dress your body shape has never been easier.

So, why is it that understanding your shape, and dressing it well is still the #1 challenge I hear from women?

As my business has grown and changed, and I’m no longer working 1:1 with women, what I’ve come to realize is that the traditional thoughts and teachings about body shapes and body shape labels leave a lot to be desired.

So today I want to talk about what traditional body shape advice gets wrong, why you still hear me using the labels , what value those labels have for you, and then I want to share a better way to understand your body shape.

If you’ve never been able to find the right label for your body in a quiz or a blog post, I hope this episode helps you understand why that is, but more importantly how to move forward without the perfect label so you can easily find clothes that fit and flatter and make you feel like a million bucks.

Let’s talk about those body type labels, and why they’re not working. I’m talking about the traditional “hourglass, pear, apple, rectangle”--and you can put things like oval or inverted triangle here too if you’d like. Any descriptive, prescriptive label you want. I’ve got 6 issues with them, and for the sake of time, I’m going to go through them pretty quick. You ready?

#1 They’re limiting. Most women DON’T fit perfectly into one category or another. The answer to this has been to come up with more shapes–more labels–beyond what I call the core 4. I’ve got a book that has 12 shapes and one that has 16. And you’d think that would solve the problem right? No–I actually have a harder time fitting into just one category when more options are offered. Instead of being a mix of 2 shapes, I feel like I’m a mix of 4 or 5–and how is that helpful?

#2-They make body shapes, and dressing yours, sound really simplistic–like “oh, this is easy just find the label and then all of your problems are solved”. But if you can’t even find the label, what happens after that doesn’t really matter. This makes women who can’t find the label easily feel bad–like their bodies are too unusual to even be described. What we don’t realize is that the majority of women struggle to identify their shape–and if that’s the case–if most women can’t use the system to make style easier, it stands to reason that the system is flawed, not you.

#3- They don’t take nuance into account. If you haven't listened to my last episode on proportion yet, you need to, because it goes hand in hand with this one–I’ll link it in the shownotes. 

In that episode, I talked about vertical body shape–and how it’s just as important as horizontal body shape when it comes to getting the look, and fit you want. Have you ever seen vertical body shape mentioned when talking about body shape? No…but it makes a HUGE difference. Dressing a short-torsoed pear with a high waist is completely different than dressing a long torsoed pear with a long waist. But body shape advice treats all pears the same. It also doesn't take into account degrees of body shapeness. An apple could be one size bigger on top than on bottom, or 3 sizes bigger on top than on bottom. Do you think dressing those two bodies is the same? Spoiler alert–no, it’s very very different. Not all women within the same shape have the exact same shape, or needs.

#4 They seem to start with what’s wrong with your body–or what needs fixing–except for hourglass, which is held up as the ideal shape. There’s inherently a good or bad judgement associated with body type labels, as well as the idea that dressing for your body shape is primarily about hiding or fixing your flaws. On that note, none of them are weight related, except for apples. It assumes all apples are plus size–and as I’m sitting here in a medium tee and small pants, I can assure you that isn’t the case. This is a huge reason women think that when they gain a few pounds, they automatically morph into an apple, and start following guidelines that cause other issues. Literally every book I have talks about swimsuits–and the recommendations for every other body shape is a skin baring bikini-except for apples, who are supposed to wear 1900’s era bathing costumes. It’s ridiculous and not accurate–all shapes come in all sizes.

#5 The majority of women are given incomplete advice. This goes along with nuance, but it’s more specific, so let me explain. Most women have “rectangle” as either a primary or secondary body shape. Which, ok, no problem, right? But here’s the thing. The other three shapes–I only talk about the core 4–have vertical nuance and degrees of body shapeness that make the advice harder to follow yes–but they share some traits that make it easy to at least give some generic advice that most women can apply. But the rectangle body shape has the most diversity within the label AND it’s the only one that really morphs into something different with weight changes. That “oval” body shape? That’s a rectangle who gains weight just in the midsection. But that's not how all rectangles gain weight–some gain it evenly, all over, while some become a little more pearish.  Have you ever seen a post or an article that talks about a “boyish figure”? That’s a rectangle, and it typically describes a small, slender, audrey hepburn-esque woman. One of my body shape books talks about the brick body shape, which is also a rectangle–broad, straight, and strong. Do you think those women are going to wear the same things? No. Rectangles are, by far, the hardest to give general advice to…and they make up the biggest percentage of women…which means the majority of women are underserved by traditional body type thinking

#6 They put us into boxes where we think we can only wear certain things–and we often don’t try anything else. If its not on the wear this, not that list, we just assume its not best for us. We don’t often stop and think–has the list maker updated the list? Is it possible that a list doesn’t cover all the things? I’ve seen countless women in style ruts because they use the body type list as a hard and fast rule book. 
I know I’ve said this before, but those lists, which ARE the goal of the body shape labels, teach the what, not the why. They don’t teach you to think critically about what effect clothes have on your body so you’re stuck relying on the list. When your body changes, or styles change, you need a new list–you can’t look at clothes and understand what they’ll do for your body, and if that’s a good thing, or not. 
In the end, the list doesn’t give enough information to really be helpful, but we act as though it will solve all of our problems. When it doesn’t, we’re more confused than ever. 


So with that ringing endorsement of traditional body type labels and advice , why do I still talk about them? Because its common language that we all understand. That’s it. When I say I worked with a woman who was a pear, you understand what I’m talking about, instantly. If I said i worked with a woman who had hips wider than her bust and shoulders, a defined waist, and slim arms and shoulders, you’d get there, but it might take a minute to process. 

It reminds me of the first angry DM I ever received, way back in the beginning of my business. A woman sent me a message because she was offended that I was using the term “rectangle”. She thought I should be using “contoured column” instead. Now this was back in the day when we were still reading magazines, which tells you how long ago it was, but I remember telling her “because magazines aren’t talking about the best jeans for contoured columns”. You would have to first figure out what the heck a contoured column IS, and THEN figure out if you were one before you could actually use the information. We already know what these traditional body shape labels are, so it expedites the conversation and the learning process. 

This is also a big reason why I only talk about the core 4 shapes–apple, rectangle, hourglass and pear. If I said “brick” you’d have to think for a minute about what that means, and how it’s different from a column. The same book also has bowling pin and bell–and if you’re like, wait, those both sound kind of like pears, you’re right! When you get into extra body shapes, they’re usually just variations of the core 4. 

I don’t believe it’s possible to give meaningful advice from just a high-level label, so my thought is, why confuse things with more labels. Just kind of get close. Use them as a starting point…

Which is exactly how I recommend you use them, too. 

I want to tell you something about myself, and this might change the way you feel about me forever, but I’m willing to risk it. You know those annoying people who love ice breaker games at corporate meetings and events? I’m one of them. My secret is out, now you know. If you’re thinking, I always thought there was something off about her–this could be it. My early career was spent in corporate training, and there was nothing I loved more than a good ice breaker. Making fully grown adults play musical chairs after a lunch break brought me so much joy. I promise there’s a point to this, so stick with me. 

It isn’t always feasible to have an entire group engaged in full contact musical chairs, so I had to have some more mild games up my sleeve, and my favorite was a game called 4 corners. It made people get up, move around, mingle..but no one was going to split their pants. If you’re not familiar here’s how it worked. A charming and witty facilitator would say something like “what’s your ideal vacation” If you love the beach, head to this corner of the room, if you want to go camping, head to that corner of the room. If you love to explore cities, head over there, and if you prefer adventure vacations-go to that corner. You get the idea, right?

There wasn’t time to go around and ask everyone in the city corner what kind of city they liked–historic, or modern, or if they liked to wander around on their own, or take a guided tour. Each group shared a high level label, but if we rounded them all up and sent them on the same version of their ideal vacation, very few people would be having the experience they truly loved. The adventure vacation people might be screaming “I meant I liked hiking” as they were chucked off a bridge with a bungee cord tied to their feet. Hardcore tent campers would probably feel shortchanged if they were staying in RVs with granite countertops and fireplaces. 

This is both the purpose, and the limitation, of body shape labels. You get into a corner with all of your pear sisters, and you share some commonality–you appear bigger on bottom than on top, but there are lots of differences too. Some of you get the gap in the back and need curvy cut pants. Others don’t get the gap in the back, and have been struggling for years because all pear advice says you need curvy cut pants. Some pears look great in belts, while others feel like they’re belting their boobs.  

The label should be a starting point, not the full and final answer.

The problem is that so many women think finding the right label will instantly solve their problems, so they put all the energy into that, only to find that its lacking when it comes to real application.  A label will get you in the right corner, and give you a little direction, but because your body is unique and the advice isn’t, it’s always going to be missing something.

So what’s the solution? Great question, I’m you asked. 

The solution is understanding your unique body without a label, creating goals for your body shape based on how you want to look, and then using clothes to achieve that goal. 

The truth is, understanding your shape is not as simplistic as it seems, but actually dressing your body best isn’t as complicated as you’ve been led to believe. You just have to think a little differently, and let go of this idea that finding the right label will solve everything. 

In the last episode, I encouraged you to understand your proportions, using words like bigger than, smaller than, the same as. If you did that, you’re on your way. Today though, I’m going to share the three elements that go into really understanding your body shape, and setting those body shape goals. Once you have those two things, you can use your clothes–in the last episode, I called them the tools, to achieve those goals–and this, my friend, is what we commonly call, “dressing your body shape”. That’s really all it is

The difference is that my way accounts for nuance, where predetermined labels don’t. 

The first element is balance. We talked about this one last week–when we’re talking about balance in the context of horizontal body shapes, we’re comparing your upper body and your lower body. Not legs vs torso, just shoulders to waist, and waist to hips. One part can be bigger than the other, or they can be roughly the same, so your balance goals–everyone will have just one, is to create balance, or maintain balance. The choice is up to you–if you’re a pear or an apple, and you like one part looking bigger, have at it–your answer would be to maintain the balance you have. If you don’t like the difference, your goal is to create balance. There’s no right or wrong answer..it’s just how you want to look.

The next element is curves. This means the difference between your bust and your hips, and your waist. There are 4 choices here–if you like your curves–and the amount of curves you have, and you want to show those curves off, your goal would be to highlight your curves. If you’ve got some curve, but you want to look curvier, your goal would be to enhance your curves. If you do not have curves, but you’d like to, your goal would be to create curves. Finally, if you don’t have curves and you don’t want to put the effort into creating some, or you do have curves, but you’d rather not, your goal would be forget about them. Again, totally up to you. If you’re a rectangle who’s been told all her life that your only goal is to look like an hourglass, I’m here to tell you you don’t have have to–you can embrace your straight figure. That’s perfectly fine–its your goal. 

You with me? Good.

The final element is individual body parts–and which do you want to bring attention to, and which would you like to camouflage. Now, I know a big percentage of the women listening right now said “I don’t want to bring attention to anything, or I want to camouflage it all”. With love, that is not a successful strategy. That’s what you’re doing when you cover your whole body in oversized pieces and extra fabric, and I hate to break it to you, but it’s doing the opposite of what you’re hoping for. So, pretend you walk into a room, and people look at you–not in a judgey way, just in a human nature way. Where would you like their eyes to land, and where would you prefer they don’t land. It doesn’t have to be any deeper than that. The parts you choose to highlight or camouflage are up to you. Face, legs, bust, waist–it doesn’t matter. But might I suggest you start with the parts you want to bring attention to? This is how we get away from body shape dressing just being a punishment. 

So those are your goals–do you want to create or maintain balance, do you want to highlight, enhance, create, or forget about curves, and which parts do you want to draw attention to or away from? You don’t need a label to figure any of that out, but once you know those things, you can simply use clothes to create outfits that achieve those goals. That’s all body shape dressing is. Let’s not turn it into something much more mysterious and unknowable than it needs to be.

What requires effort in this way of thinking is learning how to use clothes, or elements of clothes, or combinations of clothes to achieve what you want. But the cool thing is once you know what clothes do, you know it forever. Bodies change, lifestyles change, trends change–but what never ever changes is what clothes do. For example, high necklines make your bust look bigger and your shoulders look broader. They always have, they always will. So now that you know that you can say yes, that will help me achieve my goals, or no, that’s not what I’m going for. It doesn’t matter if it’s a crew neck, mock neck, turtleneck…all high necklines do the same thing.

In this method, you can stop wondering–can I wear that, and instead start asking–what will that do for me, and will that help me reach my goals–which I’m going to tell you are better quality questions.

This is how you go from being frustrated by limiting labels that never helped you anyway, to becoming an expert in dressing your own body shape, without a list or a label. 

I fully admit that my way requires more effort to learn. But if the label and the corresponding list has never made style easier, is it really worth it? It might be time to try a new approach. 

Let’s quickly recap before we talk about the homework

Traditional body type labels leave a lot to be desired. They don’t take into account your uniqueness, and rarely make it easier to build a wardrobe you feel great in.

Labels are best when they’re used as common language, or as a starting point–never as the final answer.

A better way to understand your body and start dressing it best is to understand your shape without a label, first focusing on balance, then curves, then individual body parts. Once you set goals for how you want to look, you can use clothes to achieve those goals. 

So here’s your homework, I bet you can guess what it is! Set your body shape goals. What’s your balance goal? What’s your curve goal? And what are your individual body shape goals. Go in that order, and list the parts you want to draw attention to before the parts you want to camouflage. Start with the positive. Dressing your body well shouldn’t start as a punishment.

I hope this episode encourages you to start thinking about dressing your body shape differently. If those labels and lists have never served you before, it’s time to try something new.

That’s it for this episode of the Everyday Style School. Thanks for spending time with me today. If you’re ready to make style easier and more fun, come join me in the Style Circle. If you’re ready to learn what clothes do for your body, and how to use them to achieve the goals you set, our Dress Your Body Shape masterclass is where you’ll learn to use clothes like a pro. You’ll also get our Winter Capule guide that’s coming out soon. 

You can become a member today at youreverydaystyle.com.

Oh, and don’t forget, there’s still time to submit a question about anything we talked about this season for our Listener Q&A episode that’s wrapping up the season. We’ve got a bunch of good ones already, but we’ve got room for a couple more. Here's the link.

I’ll see you next time–and until then, stay stylish!