I digress

But why not...today I got my frocks trimmed and reverted back to my high school days of sitting under the hair drying and between nods would look at the latest PhotoPlay. 

Now of course you understand that I would never subscribe to the likes of PhotoPlay and maybe that's what made it all that more delicious to read.

So while getting my trim today and under the hair dryer (not because I was getting a bouffant hairdo, but because I do color!!!  My hair is not natural!!), I picked up the PhotoPlay update, "Us" and while thumbing through it, not expecting to see anything I liked (cause I don't know about 95% of the people they are talking about in there), lo and behold, my point was made in the "Who wears (fill in the blank designer) better" article and photos of two starlets wearing the same dress and who looks better.

The one I particularly loved was Marisa Tomei and Debi Mazar.

Now both of these ladies are beautiful and have excellent figures, but their figures are very different.  The poll they were running over on redcarpet-fashionawards.com is which one looked better.  This is a Vivienne Westwood dress and both these gals are in the same color palette so this deep beautiful blue-green looks great on both of them, but one is just off.  And most of the readers of the poll got it.

Most of us would get it.  It's Debi who looks a little frumpier, and it's not the way she's standing, it's not how she looks, and it's not cause Marisa is standing better or right or anything like that.  Look at their legs.

Both have great gams, but something is wrong with the hem and how it hits Debi's legs as opposed to where it hits on Marisa's legs.  What's the matter?

Marisa has a little more shape to her legs....the thickness of her calf is a little lower.  This causes the outline of her leg to go in toward the knee a little lower than on Debi's leg.  This makes Debi's legs look thick and fat, when they are anything but.

If Debi would have worn that dress as much as 1½" higher, but still below her knee to get the same feel of the dress (that it should fall below the knee and flare just a shade out from the knee), she would have looked a gob better....

I did a little photoshop to make my point.

What happens to make this work?

Well, every person's calf eventually moves inward to the knee...where that angle is, is different on every single person...the calf thickness can be higher, the knee can be higher, the indentation can be higher or lower - there are a myriad of combinations to this.  The way to make this work is to have the hem just at the point where the leg profile starts moving in.  This gives the illusion that not only is something smaller coming (on up under the hem), but something much smaller and therefore her legs are shown off to their best advantage, even if what's above the hem isn't all that much smaller.

Here she is side by side to show it even more dramatically.

Remarkable and simple....Still great line to the dress and Debi is the va-va-voom gal she needs to be!!! Debi even looks thinner in the version on the right.

So if you have thick calves or legs that seem to go straight up and down, this is a great technique to use on your hems.  One word of warning.  Don't try and hem to the latest fashion.  If you have thick legs, there is a very small area where this works - anything shorter or longer looks bad - and not just bad - it looks awful, and in case you think I'm wrong - take a look at the pick above again. 

I dare say that had Debi worn this just a little shorter, it would have been a tie on the vote!

 

 

Comments

[Elaine Good]

Claire, I agree about the length and your explanation of the change recommended. But I also think they should have used that extra fabric cut from the hem to add a bit to the top.... It's pretty tasteless, compared the way Marisa' dress fits.

[Jean]

Totally agree --- so interesting to see the difference. I find it tricky to wear a skirt that hits below the knee, but I see that it is probably because there is just a narrow window within which the hem would look acceptable.

[Carolyn]

Claire - you make an excellent point about the hemline on the dresses...you are right they can make or break a look.

However, I still think Marisa looks better in the dress...some of it's her coloring, some of it is that way it flares at the hipline and some of it is that she doesn't have the boobage happening. So even if the hemline was in the correct place on Debi, I still like the look on Marisa better.

[lorenakitty]

Love your discussion about hem length. I had a class where the instructor had us all stand in front of a full length mirror. Each student held a large sheet of oak tag in front of us and we raised and lowered the sheet demonstrating quite effectively which hem lengths flattered and which didn't - for the very reason you mentioned!

By using oak tag, we had to mentally go beyond style, fabric and any other visual distractions.

[Theresa in Tucson]

I think I agree with Elaine, just a little too much push up. Although both ladies looked good, one just looked better. Thank you for the tips on hemlines.

[Sewer in Denver]

Deb's excess boobage for the dress is what completely ruins the look. Most women and few men would ever look lower down in order to even notice the second problem!