How to Use Colour To Look Taller and Slimmer

Author: Imogen Lamport

Colour reflects or absorbs light – and how each colour appears on you is dependent on your personal colour direction. There are ways to use colour to enhance your appearance, and ways to fool people into thinking that you’re taller and slimmer than you really are.
1. The most effective slimming trick is to wear your designated colours (if you don’t know what they are, have a colour analysis done to find out). These colours flatter your complexion, make your eyes brighter and more vibrant, and improve the quality of your skin tone. Dark circles under your eyes will all but disappear and you will look healthier and more energetic and younger.
2. Contrary to popular belief, black is only slimming if it’s one of your colours. Black makes your body look larger as it is a heavy colour and silhouettes your body against any background.
3. Medium value colours make a figure recede into the background producing a slimming silhouette.
4. Dress monochromatically from head to toe and this will visually elongate the body as there are no horizontal lines created by changes in blocks of colour from your shirt to your trousers/skirt. The eye then sees a long vertical line which makes you look taller and slimmer.
5. Divert attention from a figure flaw by using a brighter or lighter colour well away from the part you don’t want people to notice – for example, if you think your bottom is too big, wear decoration (jewellery, scarf, tie) that either has a pattern or some contrasting colour near your face, whilst keeping your bottom in a medium to dark shade of clothing.
6. Wear your eye colour in your shirt or top – this will make your eyes appear brighter and even bluer/greener – or whatever colour your eyes are. People will be so entranced looking into your eyes that they won’t notice your protruding belly.
7. Select patterns with an odd number of colours – these are more slimming than those with even numbers.
8. Colours that are too bright for you will make people want to look at your body, not your face, and will draw attention to all those parts of you that you’d prefer people don’t notice. To find out if the colour you’re wearing is to bright, stand in front of a mirror, close your eyes for a few seconds, then open them and look at your face, if you feel the colour you’re wearing insists on you looking at it, rather than your face, then the colour is most likely not the right colour for you.
9. Match your shoes to your pants/skirt – wearing a lighter colour than the clothing on your lower half will draw attention down to your feet and away from your face and will make you look shorter and bulkier. If you don’t have shoes in the same shade, wear slightly darker shoes rather than lighter ones.
10. Avoid too many colour details – horizontal stripes, changes in colour from one garment to the next and large patterns as this will make you appear bigger than you are.
There are a myriad of ways to use colour to enhance your looks, these are just a few. Colour can really make a big difference to how you look and feel – have you had one of those days where people keep telling you you look great and you don’t know why, and then those other days when people ask if you’re feeling OK and in fact you feel great? This is directly related to the colours you’re wearing. Colours that compliment your skintone, hair and eye colour will bring out the compliments in others.

© Imogen Lamport 2005

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