Back in May 2010, my sister and now brother-in-law were married. My mother, being the sewer that she is, set out to make a dress for the occasion. She found a beautiful floral print that matched my sister’s color theme, picked out a pattern from her stash, and sewed the dress. She wasn’t quite happy with the first version of it, and when she did some more tweaks here and there to the fit, she still didn’t like it.
I gave my honest feedback to my mom, because who else other than a daughter is going to tell her the truth: the dress didn’t work for her shape. The defined waist of the dress didn’t look good and emphasized what she didn’t want to draw attention to.
In the end, she purchased more of the same floral fabric from Joann Fabrics and completely overhauled the dress to something totally different than the original plan. It turned out quite nicely for the big day.
Me, my sister, and my mom
Looking at the back of the Vogue pattern envelope, we noticed the “Figure Flattery” symbols, which point out which body shapes would work for certain patterns. In case you’re not familiar with the concept (from
Vogue Patterns):
Determine your body shape from the explanations below and use our KEY TO FIGURE FLATTERY diagram to select styles that are particularly flattering to your figure. Choosing styles suited to your body shape can also eliminate the need for most pattern adjustments. Look for the figure symbol that indicates your body shape, then proceed with confidence, knowing that your pattern adjustments will be minimal and your finished garment will be pure figure flattery.
THE INVERTED TRIANGLE: Large bust and/or broad shoulders with narrow hips.
THE TRIANGLE: Small bust and/or narrow shoulders with full hips and/or thighs.
THE RECTANGLE: Balanced on top and bottom, but boxy, with little or no waist definition.
THE HOURGLASS: Equally balanced on top and bottom, with a trim waist.
I’m “The Rectangle,” as is my mom – I pretty much don’t have much in the way of “curves” or a defined waist. The pattern my mom was going to originally use? Not recommended for rectangles.
In this instance, “Figure Flattery” was right about the pattern not being the correct style for a rectangle body shape. But what about this dress that I recently made from a Vogue pattern?
Again, this pattern is not suitable for a rectangle shape according to the envelope. But it turned out just fine and I received lots of compliments about the fit.
Which makes me think – should we be paying attention to “Figure Flattery” when selecting which patterns to sew? I learned about how to dress different body shapes in Home Ec class in high school when we took our measurements to determine if we were “apple,” “pear,” “hourglass,” or “straight,” and then correlated our shape to what kinds of garments and necklines look best on us. “What Not to Wear” and other reality make-over shows on TV educate women on how to dress to look their best. Does Vogue Patterns have it right when stating that a dress will look good only on an hourglass and triangle body but not a rectangle or inverted triangle body?
When I took a look at the new 2012 patterns for spring, I paid attention to those four little icons on the right hand side of my screen. Here’s what I should be sewing:
That illustrates a majority of the patterns in the spring 2012 collection that I should be sewing if going solely on the Figure Flattery guidelines (there were a few patterns that I included previously in
my review that do work for my shape). Notice a shape theme here – or lack thereof, really. Why on earth would I want to dress in a sack? When my mom and I sat down to look at the pattern book and discovered that these were the type of patterns recommended for us to sew, she sighed and said that “sack dresses” were what she used to sew all the time in the 90’s – it was the style then and everyone was wearing them. Now, she wouldn’t go near a dress like that because she doesn’t want to feel like a waist-less, shapeless blob. And those are exactly the options that Vogue is giving us, if we were to follow their recommendations.
I know what kind of shapes generally work for me: a-line skirts, pencil skirts, flared dresses, wide belts, fluffy blouses. I rarely see these types of patterns recommended for rectangles. Sure, it’s easy to fit a rectangular shaped pattern to a rectangle body, but does it flatter, as their term implies?
I’m not knocking their recommendations entirely, though. For example, I know that this dress would not work for me at all. I don’t have the boobs to fill it out and it’s pretty tight:
The same goes with this dress. I’ve made dresses with a waistline seam like this one before and it just doesn’t work at all:
I know that there will be some that are reading this thinking that I shouldn’t be complaining about finding patterns to sew that will fit me and look fine. Everyone has some type of fitting problem when it comes to sewing, though, and my problems are that I can’t fill out most dresses and blouses since I have a high, small bust, I have narrow shoulders, no waist, and my hips are slightly larger than my chest so I need to grade out my patterns. No one is perfect.
I guess what it comes down to is knowing what works for your body type and sewing what makes you happy – Figure Flattery is just a guideline. My sewing is based on patterns that are suited for my sewing ability, will be easy to fit, and look stylish. But I always have that little voice in the back of my head when I look at Vogue Patterns that says to me, “are you sure this will work for you? There’s no rectangle icon for this pattern.”
Does Figure Flattery work for you or do you ignore it?
This issue has preoccuppied me for years and I'm still thinking about it. I've worn things that nipped in at the waist and made me look like an hourglass, but I've also worn things that nipped in at the waist and emphasized my potbelly. Sometimes I think fit matters more than silhouette. But maybe that's only true with moderate bodies and moderate silhouettes. Maybe the rules are more reliable at the extremes. Maybe the golden ratio is universal and timeless, but it's not the only thing that pleases the eye. All this to say that I share your ambivalence with Vogue's figure flattery icons.
Teaweed, I absolutely agree with you. The whole point of "Figure Flattery" is so that it "eliminates the need for most pattern adjustments," but that doesn't always create the most "flattering" silhouette. I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this way with Vogue patterns!
I haven't sewed much with patterns since high school, so this is all new to me (or maybe I never noticed it?). Looks like Vogue was trying, but their system is not fail proof. Your first dress (where you look totally HAWT!) is proof of that!!! I can see how frustrating this can be! Thanks for bringing this up…if I sew something for myself, I will keep this in mind.
Thanks Steph! I guess my motto when it comes to sewing is: "I'm sewing this because it will make me happy" and not "I'm sewing this because Vogue tells me this will look ok on me."
Hmmm I've never paid it any attention.
I ignore it, since I've sewn for this old body through thin and thick, for 45 years. I shake my head in wonderment at how a few of the patterns are classified for the four body type symbols that Vogue is using now. But, if you are a novice sewer, and/or are not sure what styles look good on your own (unique!) body, the system is a useful guide to avoid disappointment. Burda is using a similar system now, too. I ignore it, as well. Some of their styles are already so "European" that I would look odd wearing them even if I made the "rectangle" view.
I think body shape must really be a much more complicated issue than the simple shape system appreciates. A friend of mine and I have almost identical hip/bust/waist measurements, but something different about the way the weight is distributed means we look horrible in each others clothing. I think at the end of the day we should just pick patterns we like the look of, and then adjust so that they fit/suit us.
Hi, thanks for the post. I've been thinking a lot about this issue as I am trying to get back into sewing with limited time on my hands and don't want to waste it on things that will be too difficult to make look good on me. I agree the Vogue figure fit suggestions often seem quite off. As I have looked more deeply at figure analysis, I think I can tell why things they say will work for me in actuality won't, at least based on the photo they choose to use for the pattern.
I was looking at your second picture and it reminded me of what I have been trying to make sense of lately. I think part of the reason the dress you are wearing in that photo does look so good on you even if Vogue says it won't is that (from what I can tell based on the photo), it is made from a knit fabric. I suspect that this is probably important.
Personally, I really don't like wovens, but haven't really been able to put my finger on it until recently. I came across the book "Dressmaking for Real Women". In the beginning where she talking about analyzing your figure, she also gives specific advice on what types of fabric will work for each figure subtype. I have started to realize that her advice is in line with what I had intuitively figured out. As an hourglass, stiff wovens are too angular on me and only exaggerate what is larger and fail to highlight what would be better to highlight. She suggested jersey for my type because of its ability to drape so well. I realized that the reason why almost all of my clothes are jersey because it highlights what works for me and sort of softly skims over what is best left not highlighted.
I just wish more sewing books, pattern companies, etc. would start to more clearly address what a particular pattern might look like with different types of fabric. I think there are a lots of basic styles/patterns etc. that each will probably look good on multiple different body types, but I'm willing to bet that specific fabric type that might be best for each of body type are different.
Yet one more thing to consider when deciding on a project…
Anyway, thanks again 🙂
This is a really nice post. I'm a beginner-level seamstress and sew by hand, but recently my mother taught me how to use an actual pattern (I'm very comfortable just working with measurements, so to be pattern-less has not been an issue). Well, I bought a Vogue pattern the other day and it says it will fit every shape BUT mine: the inverted triangle. If you cut off my shoulders, I'd be an hourglass, but my athletic past makes my already-defined shoulders oh-so noticeable. Still, I think this pattern will suit my figure–as long as I have a very nipped-in waist (like an hourglass), things generally look rather good on me. For separates, I usually wear pencil skirts and tight knit tops, even though puffy skirts are generally recommended for inverted triangles. While I have a couple of them too, I generally favor the pencil skirts… and people say I look great! So I think a body-pattern system may be good for the uninitiated, but if you know what looks good on you and what fabrics work for you already, just go with that and–like some of the other comments brought out–tweak until you're happy with the end result!
I'm an experienced sewer with an hourglass shape, more or less, and a pretty solid idea of what will flatter my figure, flaws and all. That said, however, I'm embarking on sewing wardrobe basics for a transgender woman whose shape is so unlike my own that I can't guess very well what will flatter her. I find the figure flattery shapes at Vogue helpful, although not every rectangle pattern seems likely to do her any favors, since so many emphasize the narrow hips.
I suspect most of us who pay much attention to fashion have tried on all sorts of shapes until we know what flatters us. The Vogue guidelines might be viewed as an aid for those who have not.