Cracking the Code: Figure Type

This weekend, when I was on a "mini-vacation" with my family, in the car on the way to visit some friends who live in the country, all the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place. I want to get it written and published before I forget.

The 6 figure types and how to ID yours:

• Type A (formerly triangle) = shoulders narrower than hips, waist defined or not.
  
• Type I (formerly rectangle or pencil) = shoulders and hips equally wide, waist slightly or not defined.
  
• Type O (formerly oval) = shoulders sloped and equal to hips, waist filled in.
  
• Type V (formerly wedge or inverted triangle) = shoulders wider than hips, waist defined or not.
  
• Type X (formerly hour-glass) = shoulders straight and equal to hips, waist defined.
  
• Type 8 (formerly figure-eight) = shoulders sloped and equal to, or slightly smaller than, hips; waist defined.

Does this clear up more questions than it raises? If not, leave your questions here.

These are a few of my favorite things ...

In yesterday's Tour of Homes post (find all 200 entries here) I mentioned I have been learning something new. That something is eBay.

This blouse is darling, the auction ends tomorrow, and it has no bids. Another personal favorite - new khaki crop pants - same thing.

I am not discouraged, but I thought I really should tell my friends about these items. If they don't sell on eBay, I may be telling my In Person Friends about them next week.

Tour of Homes, AKA In Which I Embarrass Myself with Pictures of Real Life

In response to encouragement from HolyMama, I am participating in BooMama's Bloggy Tour of Homes. Trouble is this: I have been focussing on learning something new this week and wasn't really thinking about doing this. So what you see is what it's really like here right now.

The front door image ~ Because my frugal people have been blogging about staying cool, I wanted to show this picture. Taken in the morning, and my house faces east, you can see the umbrella is entirely shading one window. Very effective!


Where I blog ~ a corner of the living room. With kids at home, I highly recommend the computer be located in a central place. Promotes accountability and discourages family fragmentation.


The living area ~ from another angle.


The kitchen ~ desperately in need of a makeover, but nowhere near the top of the list yet.

See the dishwasher? It's just for show. We haven't plumbed it in because to use it, we would have to take the drawer next to it out.

And, because this is a fashion blog, my closet:

A Girl In Boys Board Shorts

This picture was supposed to be used for the Carnivale of Couture at ShoeSense, way back around "Red-white-&-blue Day". Unfortunately, due to technical problems, I was unable to post.

This is my daughter with the purely functional style personality, dressed in her everyday clothes. Actually, this solid color t-shirt would be one of her dressier ones. A true everyday ensemble might include a thrift store tee from some old vacation Bible school. Just call her "sporty".

The shorts are reversible, purchased half-price in the boy's department at Old Navy. Two shorts for (half the) price of one. An additional benefit is the elastic waist, eliminating the precise fitting necessary with some juniors board shorts.

Don't the knee-length shorts look elegant? Especially with the shapely swooooosh down the side.

July 26th, 2006 WFMW Fashion Review

For quite some time I have been desirous of bringing you a review of the excellent weekly feature, Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer, selecting my favorite "makes life easier" tips related to wardrobing.

However, as you can well imagine, that project would've been near impossible with dial-up. Thankfully Shannon, in her finite wisdom, has instituted new guidelines, which made the project all that much easier for me today.

Tips from this week's entries:

• Joanne (Visible Panty Lines): Oh yeah! A cure for the thigh bulge that sometimes accompanies the wearing of the magic knickers.
  
• Melissa (Kryptonite for static cling): This trick really works, I've tried it. But most of us don't wear nylons anymore, anyway, right?
  
• Heather (Doing Laundry): Did you know you can iron satin?

Since Works For Me Wednesday typically draws up to 100 participants, I'm a little curious: does anyone actually read them all?

Super-hot and Yet Modest

Yes, this is me. On a 100° day. The light colored sleeveless tee-shirt is double-layer, though.

Hey, I bet there are readers here now who have yet to be offended by my early post, What Not to Wear to Church. In it I mention that many nice men do not like to see any part of a woman's "undergarment".

Maybe you have a hard time believing that the sight of a bra-strap is a big deal. I did too. For the past 5 summers, I have volunteered in a capacity where the dress code specifies no visible undergarment (or lack thereof). For the first 4 summers, I quizzed my husband, "Is it really a big deal?"

His answer, roughly paraphrased, was that a man sees a part of the bra and it causes him to think of the whole bra. The idea of the whole bra leads to the thought of you in ... do I need to continue?

Which leads me to my current favorite extreme hot weather casual look: The bikini top as bra (and necklace, too!). The advantages:

• No visible bra straps
• Dries quickly
• Inexpensive, especially this time of year. Where can you buy a bra for $5?
• Provides a splash of contrasting color near the face.

Now, I realize this will not work for every figure type. Nor for every situation. But for slim teens who want to be modest, this season's long board shorts paired with a long tank and contrasting "tie straps" (which we sew in place) equals a look that shouldn't cause anyone to think of anything but good clean fun.

It's our summer uniform.

The Real Reason I'm So Happy I Have DSL

The history: I announced the switch originally in this post; hinted at the advantages I was looking forward to here; and bemoaned the two weeks it took us, being a geek-free household, to actually get the system to work in my apology post.

Since most of our tech-savvy friends were unavailable when I was really anxious to get back up and running, I had the inspired idea to have my kids call one of their friends. Figuring she couldn't really hurt anything, and she'd probably work for ice cream, what did I have to lose? About an hour later, we were surfing! She, uh, signed into her hotmail account. *?*?*

Anyway, enough about that, the real reason for this post is to share my joy with the rest of y'all. I found the Judson Laipply video!

(I got there via a site I found through Apologetix. I remember noticing HolyMama post a few months ago about the Man in the Orange Crush T Shirt, but sadly I was out of the loop then.)

I've seen it now. LOL!

She Didn't Need Me

Beth's question:

I am going to be hosting a table at a very fancy "gala" in October. Since you know my body shape and coloring, what would you suggest I look for? I want to appear elegant and classic, but eye-catching as well. I think the eye-catching will come from matching the outfit perfectly to my shape, coloring and personality.

Shopping by silhouette is a wonderful thing about Nordstrom.com, where she found this dress without any help from me. (Unfortunately it is now unavailable and we are back to the drawing board. But it is so pretty, I wanted to post it anyway.)

• Shape: Beth's body shape is a tall A-line.
  
• Coloring: She has warm brown eyes and hair, pink-tone light-to-medium skin.
  
• Personality: Her fashion persona is Audrey Hepburn aka Charlotte.
  

And then, to underscore the elegance of the dress, she found the BEST SHOES EVER (on sale for like $56 until July 31st!)

Knee-length Board Shorts

Look what I found! On sale for $6.99! Now I'm going back to see if I can find a suit.

I Need Your Input

As usual when I am anticipating a casual evening out, I am currently racking my brain regarding what to wear this Saturday evening. The event: a community theatre production. The venue: a community college theatre. Sure, I could wear anything, but as much as I cry about not getting to dress up, it had better be a little bit special.

If it wasn't supposed to be over 100 degrees that day, I might wear this outfit, in accordance with Danielle's advice on the previous, March 2006, nightlife question. But, then, there is air-conditioning.

A skirt or dress would be nice, something cool and cottony, but I confess that I'm tired of mine, the straight ones I blogged about here. That is, I still like them for church, and for everyday wear, but they don't feel special.

Do you think I should borrow this skirt from my daughter who has like 5 really cute options? She's always willing to share, as am I, but I rarely take her up on it. I hate to think I'm taking advantage.

Dangling Questions

As long as I'm dealing with old questions, and especially since this same favorite reader has since asked another question (more on that another time), it seems only appropriate to attempt to answer this one, originally posed back here:

So... if we (you and I) were to make two shopping trips a year, when might those be scheduled? I am envisioning a weekend together in that big city near me, with you flying in (my dime) and us hitting the shops. I could even bring a suitcase full of the clothes I plan to keep (you could tell me which ones I should, what do you call it? biff) If you take out the cost of hotel and food, how much $$ would I need to allocate? Spring and Fall? Coincide with any particular sale? It would be like "What Not to Wear" with 1/10th the budget.

My thoughts:

• Yes! What fun!
  
• When? September and April.
  
• How many $$? One-third of your annual clothing budget per trip.
  
• Readers help: Do you know the precise timing of any unbeatable sales?
  

Then the real trick is how to make sure you can wrap your spending plan around all the items you need.

Another post?

Me, In Mom Jeans

Since we don't have a TV, and I never get around to putting together photo albums, every now and again we can be found sitting in front of the computer, looking at pictures. Imagine my dismay when this one popped up.

"Aaah! Is that what I look like?"

(They kindly assured me it is not.)

Obviously these are my painting pants. And this picture was taken a few years ago. But it clearly demonstrates why fitting rooms are equipped with three-way mirrors.

I promise to be more careful.

Special Occasion Cost Per Wear

While I was out, a couple of good questions came in comments. See Jody's question and my non-specific answer here. Here's Dani's, regarding Calculating Cost Per Wear:

Hi!
I was wondering what your opinion was about cost per wearing when it came to things for special occasions, like prom dresses? I spent $199 on my prom dress this year (as a sophmore going to another school's prom) but I'm also wearing it twice for 4-H clothing selection, I promised my best friend (who goes to a different school) she could wear it next year for her junior prom, and if our proms are on seperate days I will also be wearing it to my junior prom, since only one of my friends has gotten to see me in it. How do you reccomend I go about figuring my cost per wearing for this dress?
Thank you so much!
Dani

First, I want to congratulate Dani for both her willingness to practice restraint and her generosity. I highly recommend sharing when it comes to event dressing. Calculating cost per wear? I guess I'd just take the $199 and divide by the 4 times you are going to wear it, because that's all that really affects your budget. Having a friend wear it is "frosting on the cake", so to speak.

In addition, I suspect Dani, obviously a sensible and creative thinker, will find additional opportunities to wear this dress and lower the cost per wear accordingly. Later, if she sells the dress on consignment, the amount received for it would be subtracted from the initial cost before dividing by the number of wears. My target cost per wear for these types of special occasion dresses is $10-$20.

One final thought for the young ladies: I spend about $1 American per day for my clothing. If your mother is buying you prom dresses priced in the hundreds, and she is wearing runners, "mom jeans", and message t-shirts; you should get a job.

Did You Miss Me?

I am so sorry to disappear off the face of the earth without any notice.

Excuse #1: We, in our computer illiteracy, were unable to successfully navigate the installation of the equipment for our new internet connection. But I'm fast now.

Excuse #2: Immediately followed by my annual vacation.

I'm so happy to be back! I've really missed all of you internet friends.

Now I'm off to sort through my 60 new emails. More soon!

The Magic Knickers

Regarding this post and attending comments at the ever-popular A Dress A Day blog:

• Here's an affordable basic version of the magic knickers.
  
  
• Here's one with waist-nipping properties.
  

Melanie didn't agree with my opinion on the (blue) dress in question. I said, "I love everything about the runway one EXCEPT that half of her bosoms are exposed". But I don't mind. She did it without being disagreeable


Update: after Wendy's comment, I think I like these better.