Do you ever wonder what people really mean when they say someone has “great style”? It’s an elusive concept, to be sure. What they are really saying is that the person in question just looks good all the time, but when pressed to explain, most folks would have a hard time putting their finger on exactly what it is about that person’s look that makes it seem so effortless. Well, let me tell you a secret: the reason you think that some people have such good style is simply because they always wear clothes that fit them—and fit them well. When you banish ill-fitting clothes from your life and only allow proper fitting ones in, you open the door to having great style—forever.
It’s a total lie that you need a certain body type to be truly stylish. Style is not something you’re just born with or tough luck to you, kitten. Being fashionable doesn’t mean a lifetime of shoes that kill, fretting that something is “so last season,” or waiting to wear something “as soon as I lose five pounds.” And skinny isn’t a goal—it’s a style of jean. The real, true enemy of great style is fit. Because if your clothes don’t fit you properly, you’ll never look amazing. Once you learn how to tell if a garment is fitting you as it’s supposed to, you’ll be amazed at how much better you look and feel in your clothes. But fit is a loaded word—and it should come as no surprise to you that the Hollywood definition of it is actually a total lie.
When I dress an actor for a photo, I go to great lengths to make their garments appear to fit them perfectly. But notice I said “appear”—because while that outfit you see a celeb wearing in a magazine may look flawless from the front, you’d be mighty surprised if you saw what was probably going on in the back. It’s usually a crazy jumbled mess of pins, clamps, and double-stick tape holding it all together, faking a perfect fit—which is not something that would ever work in real life.
Fit is actually a fairly clinical, mechanical concept. It refers to the garment needing to be right for the body, not the body somehow being wrong for the garment. And the idea of fit gets way stickier when you start to hold it up to the light and examine it a bit more closely—because while it really is merely a function of how a garment is performing, it’s also highly subjective. Most guides to proper fit worry about what is or is not “flattering” to your particular body shape or figure. But they all fall short of actually providing any useful information to the reader —because they don’t take actual, factual fit into account.
Proper fit means that the clothes you wear should always perform as you need them to, period. That means no garments that gape or bunch, no seams that twist, no pants with crotches that hang too low, no blouses that won’t stay buttoned, and no skirts that shift around annoyingly. These everyday nuisances are simply mechanical problems caused by poorly fitting clothes, and they can all be banished in a heartbeat—if you know how your clothes are meant to fit in the first place. Once you learn what the most common fit pitfalls are, you can start to spot and avoid them.
But first things first: you can’t even begin to determine if your clothes are fitting properly if you don’t have a full-length mirror. Even a $6 one from a discount store leaned up against the wall is miles better than only getting half the picture via your dresser-top mirror. Once you’ve got that covered, you can move on to banishing bad fit from your life. Because great fit equals great style—always.
Finding a pair of pants that fit correctly is a nightmare for almost every single woman. Take heart—you are not alone! From petite to tall or curvy to stick figure, it’s a constant battle to find something in your price range that doesn’t pull, tug, ride up, or bunch unflatteringly. And if you happen to be supermodel height? Good luck finding an inseam long enough to graze the top of your shoes. You’re likely going to spend the rest of your life pretending that ankle-cropped pants are “so totally in right now!”
Let’s start by talking about denim. Jeans are one of the hardest pant styles to nail down properly. I regularly bring twenty or more pairs of jeans in for an actor’s first fitting—and we end up trying on almost every single one! Maybe you find that that all jeans have a tendency to slip down, exposing your backside and underwear to the world. There’s also a high probability that most jeans you’ve tried on manage to dig into your stomach in an uncomfortable, unsupportive way. These problems often occur when a person with a long torso chooses a style of jean that is cut way too low in the waist, cutting her off right at the middle.
The right tool to solve these problems is a higher-waisted jean—so in the future, you long torso-ed gals will know to seek them out, no matter what style is allegedly “in” that season. Forget boring haters droning on about “mom jeans,” because a higher waistline will hit your tummy at a better spot and act like a corset: giving support and providing a long, uninterrupted line when you bend over. (Which also means zero panty flashing!) And since they fit snugly around your actual waist and not low on your hips, they won’t slide down every five seconds.
The takeaway here is that when you find something that fits your body and performs the action you want it to, nobody notices whether it’s technically “in” or “out.” They just think you look great—all the time—and that particular fit then becomes a permanent part of your personal wardrobe toolkit. Knowing what fits you properly takes almost all the confusion out of shopping—instantly. (Insert giant sigh of relief here.)
But why does a high-waisted pair of jeans fit those with long torsos better than other styles? It’s all due to the “rise” of a particular pair of pants, also known as the distance between the crotch and the waistband. It’s an important detail, because the shorter this length, the lower the pants will sit on your waist. To start figuring out what the best rise is for you, take a flexible cloth tape measure (not a metal one from the hardware store!) and determine the distance from the top of the waistband to the bottom of the crotch seam on your favorite-fitting pair of pants.
A low-rise pair will start a good three inches below the natural waist, so any soft flesh will spill over. But a pair with a higher rise (that’s the high-waisted pair we discussed before) will hit you just above your natural waist, holding you in and increasing your physical comfort many times over. If a pair of pants isn’t fitting you properly, it’s usually due to having chosen the wrong rise measurement for your body. Now I’ve told you everything I know about pants with a high rise, perfect for those of you with a longer torso, but what about all those other pants out there?
REGULAR OR MID RISE: Regular or mid-rise pants are meant to be worn just below your natural waist, which is found at the point where your waist is narrowest. Some folks think their natural waist is right at the navel, but this is incorrect. Just as no two bodies are alike, everyone’s natural waist is at a different spot. Your true natural waist is to be found at the smallest point of your torso. If you seem to have lost your natural waist and need a little help finding it again, just stand up and bend from side to side while nude. The highest point along your midsection where your skin creases and folds is your natural waist. (And take note: Some folks’ natural waists are very high—mine is right at the bottom of my ribcage!)
Most pants (such as casual chinos or simple wool trousers) have a regular or mid rise. If you have a somewhat high natural waist (more than an inch above your navel), pants with too low of a rise can cause the center seam to ride up and put the entire outline of your crotch (sometimes uncharitably called a “camel toe”) on full display. But a pair with a regular rise will give a more relaxed fit—and alleviate the problem completely. (This particular problem has long been judgingly considered a by-product of wearing pants that are too tight, but it’s actually just a simple engineering problem—easily fixable by choosing the right fit.)
LOW RISE: Low-rise pants are meant to be worn at the hips and will sit well below your natural waist—which means roughly two inches or more below your navel. They obviously aren’t intended to conform to your natural waist, as the proper fit of a pair of low-rise pants is meant to mimic the “hip-hugger” styles of the 1960s and 1970s. If you have short legs and a long torso, low-rise pants are unlikely to fit you properly.
ULTRALOW RISE: The lowest of the low, a pair of pants with an ultralow rise will start at least four (if not five) inches below the navel, often just barely grazing the bottom of your hipbone. If you are very short-waisted (meaning the distance between your shoulders and your waist is less than most clothes are generally designed for), a pair of ultralow rise pants can be the perfect fit solution to bring your look into proportion.
SHORT RISE: Often found in the petite section, short-rise pants are meant to be worn at the natural waist of a shorter person. A shorter rise means you won’t have a bunch of extra material in the crotch—which equals more comfort and a better fit on shorter bodies.
Those of you with more generous hips will find that the pockets on dress pants tend to pop out unflatteringly. The right tool to solve this problem is either a pair of pants that zip along the side seam or have horizontal pockets that simply can’t gap or pull—by design.
When we have this problem on shows, we simply have the pockets stitched closed—sometimes removing the pocket lining as well. But this fix is not reserved solely for actors in glamorous Hollywood, California! It’s something you can actually have a tailor do quite cheaply—and it’s well worth the money. (For the whole scoop on all the little alterations you can have done easily and inexpensively to make your clothes look better, flip ahead to chapter 3!)
Another common fit problem on less expensive pants (although I’ve seen it on $300 pairs, too) is a poorly set zipper that pulls, gaps, and falls down slowly yet surely—usually while you are right in the middle of talking to someone important. There is absolutely no fix for this besides sewing the zipper shut every single time you wear them, which is a completely ridiculous idea. So always take a brisk lap around the store and vigorously sit down/stand up in the dressing room a few times to ensure the pair you are considering buying does not have any zipper problems that could cause embarrassment later on.
If a pair of pants pull and “whisker” at the crotch or groin area when you try them on, beware—as this is not a problem that can be fixed by any alteration. It doesn’t always mean they are too small—more often than not, it just means they are poorly designed. Pants that pull and wrinkle across the very tops of your thighs will cause them to fit poorly everywhere else, too. Getting the proper fit in a pair of pants is a true house of cards—because when one part of the structure is off, the whole thing is doomed! If they aren’t sitting properly on your hips, they’ll be far more likely to ride up your bum, gap at the waist, and end up being too short—all because they don’t fit correctly at that one specific area.
A skirt is usually a far easier fit than a pair of pants—but that doesn’t mean just any old one will do. A badly made skirt (or one that simply doesn’t fit you properly) brings its own set of problems to the table. The main thing my actors complain about when wearing a skirt is the tendency to spin around and shift while walking. This is usually caused by choosing a skirt that doesn’t sit properly at your natural waistline—not your hips, mind you—I’m talking about your actual, factual waistline, which we found back on this page.
When a skirt fits properly on your waist, it anchors itself in place around your waist and hips—and that helps the skirt stay in place all day long without shifting or twisting. If you have a look at the skirts in your closet that are guilty of rotating annoyingly around your body when you walk, you’ll likely notice they are cut fairly straight up and down. This cylindrical shape makes a skirt sit lower on the hips, allowing it to spin around to its heart’s content with every step. This problem happens most commonly with pencil skirts—and is usually worse for women with bigger hips; in order to get a proper fit through the bum and thighs, they’re left with a skirt that is too big in the waist, which means the skirt has no anchor, so round and round and round it goes. The easy, inexpensive solution to this problem is to simply buy your skirts in a size that fits you through the hips and thighs correctly—then have a tailor add darts at the waistband to provide more shape, keeping the skirt firmly in place.
Buying bigger and then taking in only where needed is the costume designer’s ultimate secret weapon for dressing curves—and it really works! But even women with stick straight or boyish hips are likely to find they have the exact same skirt-spinning problem. Luckily, it can also be easily fixed by having a tailor add darts at the waist. Darts are a truly magical trick for making clothes that are just a bit “off” fit properly—so if you aren’t sure what the heck I’m getting at when I talk about them, jump ahead to this page to learn more!
Pencil skirts are definitely the hardest style of skirt to get a proper fit in, but other types can present problems as well—so it helps to know a bit about how a few different basic skirt styles are meant to fit in the first place. But keep in mind: As long as a skirt fits like it’s supposed to through the waist and hips, the rest of it becomes a simple matter of personal style.
A-LINE: Named for its shape, which resembles a capital letter A. An A-line skirt is typically knee-length, and usually does not feature any embellishments, pleats, or slits. A properly fitted A-line skirt should be wider at the lower hip than at the waist.
CIRCLE: Also known as a skater skirt, this is made in a circular shape that flares out at the hem and does not have any darts, pleats or gathers. A properly fitting circle skirt will fit snugly at the waist and flare out from the body. It’s a good choice for those who want a full-skirted look without additional bulk.
MAXI: A long skirt that drapes to the ankle. The right hem length for a maxi skirt is either right at the ankle (for taller babes) or just grazing the floor (for petite ladies).
MINI: A skirt that has a hemline well above the knee. The average miniskirt measures anywhere from ten to fourteen inches from waist to hem. If you are tall, you’ll need a miniskirt that hangs lower on the hips for it to be long enough to cover your bum. Shorter babes can choose styles that hit at the natural waistline, as length doesn’t pose such a problem.
WRAP: A wrap skirt is exactly what it sounds like—a simple garment, often made of thin cotton, that wraps around the waist and is secured in place by two ties. You’ll know if a wrap skirt isn’t fitting correctly, as the front will splay open at the knee. This means the skirt is likely too small. A properly fitting wrap skirt will have enough material to overlap in the front and tie at the side, allowing for more coverage in front.
MIDI: A 1970s inspired, slightly fuller style that hits the wearer at or just below the knees. The classic midi skirt will fall right at the middle of the shin, where the leg starts to thin out.
TULIP: Fitted at the waist, with extra folds of fabric at the front and a hem that closely resembles the inverted petals of a tulip flower. A tulip skirt can be tricky to wear if the folds are not secured at the front—as this will allow the two sides to separate and make walking and sitting somewhat tricky.
If you’ve ever worn a skirt with a side or back zipper, you’ve likely encountered the annoying “bump” that makes a zipper bunch out in a lumpy and unflattering way. This can be caused by many things, but the most common problem is a difference in the materials used for the skirt itself and for the tape on either side of the zipper. If the skirt is cotton and the zipper tape is made of polyester, the cotton skirt will shrink a bit upon washing or dry cleaning, causing the polyester zipper tape material to get bunched up and wrinkly. (If this is the cause, the only cure is replacing the zipper with a cotton-taped version—something you can read all about on this page.)
A bumpy zipper can also result if the manufacturer didn’t take the time to properly set the zipper—or simply used the wrong zipper for the garment. While an invisible zipper may look great disappearing into the side seam of a skirt, it’s not very practical. A side seam is a major stress point on a skirt, and an invisible zipper is simply too wimpy to stand up to the task. It will always pull, wrinkle, and bunch itself up. A bumpy, wavy zipper on a skirt constitutes a bad fit—so unless you’re interested in paying to have it replaced, leave it on the rack.
Do you know how to tell if a blouse or shirt fits you properly? You might be surprised to find that you actually don’t, as the ways in which one can fit poorly are endless. Anyone with boobs (generous or small!) will have their own list of fit issues to complain about. Luckily, learning what to look for when you first try on a blouse is likely the answer to all your shirt-fit problems. Start in a well-lit room with a good mirror. Button the front and sleeves of the blouse, but don’t tuck it in just yet! We want to give it a once-over to determine if it does indeed fit before we get around to seeing how it will look tucked into your favorite pair of jeans.
The first thing you’ll want to check is the bustline. Big-busted babes will always have a hard time finding a button-front blouse that closes properly and doesn’t gap open in between the buttons. You can solve this problem in one of two ways: by either choosing to have a tailor sew tiny snaps in between the buttons to keep your blouse from popping open (this is our go- to fix on set) or by simply swapping out button-front styles for a tunic or popover style blouse and move on with your life, never worrying about gaping buttons again. Removing as many buttons as possible from the equation helps eliminates the problem—and a garment that eliminates problems is the exact definition of proper fit.
If the bustline doesn’t gap, pull, or strain at the buttons or seams, you’ve got the green light to move on to checking out the shoulder fit. To do so, cross your arms over your chest, watching the shoulders of the blouse while you do so. If it bunches at the shoulders, chances are it’s too big. Any pulling or tightness at the shoulder indicates the blouse is likely too small. Fixing a poorly fitted shirt shoulder is a complicated alteration that isn’t worth doing, so if the next size up or down doesn’t solve the problem, don’t bother buying it.
If the shoulder fits with no bunching or pulling, congratulations! You’re more than halfway there. Next, you’ll want to turn your wrists and neck with the blouse completely buttoned. The cuffs and collar should move comfortably without shifting upward or twisting. Make sure you bend over in the blouse (with it both tucked and untucked), checking to see if it rides up too far in the front or back. If it passes the bend test and covers everything you want it to, hooray! There’s only one fit issue left to check.
If the blouse has bust darts, you’ll want to make sure that they are sitting correctly. Properly placed darts should point toward the bust and end about a half inch away from the nipple; they should never sit above or below the nipple. If the bust darts line up correctly, take a final minute to bend and move in the blouse, checking for any previously unseen pulling or twisting before you finally deem it fit to come live in your closet.
A jacket that fits you well can pull together a look that’s seriously lacking in other areas. I keep a tailored jacket in my office on set at all times, as it’s the easiest way to make even a t-shirt and jeans seem a bit more polished. But it can’t be just any old jacket! As it’s usually the cornerstone of an outfit, proper fit is especially important.
The most common fit problem is a jacket that’s too snug. If you’re going for a very tailored, fitted look, you’re more likely to always be toeing the line between too boxy and too tight. This may sound obvious, but if you can’t hug somebody without feeling like you’re about to bust open a seam, your jacket is too tight. Pulling across your shoulder blades also indicates a too-snug fit. But if you can’t button it up easily, you needn’t worry. The open jacket look is acceptable in every line of work—unless you happen to be an attorney standing in front of a judge in federal court. If a jacket that closes is high on your wish list, but you can never find one that fits the bill, opt for a structured yet stretchy knit jacket instead. Versions with details such as contrasting buttons or notched collars can stand in for regular suit jackets beautifully—and have the added benefit of stretch, allowing them to actually close over your boobs. (You may have the opposite problem—your jacket fits well in the shoulders but is too big in the waist. If so, flip to this page to learn how you can have a tailor add some darts to nip it in at the waist in a jiffy.)
Most jackets have a small amount of padding at the shoulder. This is important, as it gives a jacket its shape. But those pads (and the entire shoulder seam) should stop right at the end of your natural shoulder. If they extend any farther (past your shoulder and down toward your arm), the whole jacket will look too large. Adjusting the shoulder of a jacket is a huge alteration—so you’re better off buying one that fits well through the shoulder in the first place.
The sleeve length of your jacket is really a personal choice. While there are no hard and fast rules for women’s sleeve lengths as there are for men (more about that on this page), you can’t go wrong with having your jacket cuffs lie somewhere between one inch above the knuckles and one inch below the wrist. I personally like mine a bit shorter (about an inch above the wristbone) to better show off a little more shirt cuff, a sliver of wrist, or a fabulous bracelet!
If you have broad shoulders and a small chest, you might find that jackets with lapels tend to sag at the chest area instead of creating a nice, clean vertical line, which in turn causes the jacket to slouch and fit poorly through the entire bust, arm, and shoulder area. This is the very definition of poor fit, but luckily, it’s easy enough to fix. Having a tiny snap sewn anywhere from one to two inches above the top button will cause the lapel to lay straighter, better, and flatter—which in turn makes the whole jacket fit better!
The humble dress is quite possibly the world’s most perfect garment. The right one can easily be jazzed up or dressed down according to your needs. I put all my female actors in dresses every chance I get. Sometimes the ones who have spent a lifetime wearing only pants will tell me they can’t figure out how to perform in a dress. I always remind them that Lucille Ball (of I Love Lucy fame) did almost every bit of the show’s slapstick comedy while wearing a dress—so why can’t they?
But even perfect-looking garments can be bad if they fit poorly. Different dress styles present a variety of fit issues—no matter what your body type. So if you’ve ever wondered why a certain style just “doesn’t work” on you, it’s probably due to that particular style’s fit limitations. And as you’re probably sick of hearing me say by now, it doesn’t matter what kind of dress you choose to wear if it doesn’t fit correctly! So here’s a brief overview of the most common dress styles out there—along with the fit pros and cons of each:
EMPIRE: A dress with an empire seam (one that is sewn directly below the bustline) is a great tool for those with larger breasts, as the design can accommodate a full bust without adding fabric width to the garment’s waist and hips. But an empire seam that sits too high on your bust is practically impossible to fix. So if the seam of a dress cuts into the bottom of your boobs, leave it on the rack. Otherwise you’ll spend half your life adjusting it until you finally freak out and throw it in the trash in the middle of the day on a Tuesday.
FIT AND FLARE: A style of dress that is narrower at the top, cinched through the waist, and flared through the hips to the hem. A fit and flare dress is a good choice for those with smaller breasts. Unless they are constructed with stretch fabric, fit and flare dresses tend to be too tight at the bust for full-bosomed babes. A fit and flare dress also provides a nice, relaxed fit for those with a generous backside and hips.
SHEATH: A sheath dress is a fitted, straight-cut dress that is often nipped in at the waistline. Usually designed with a structured sleeve, the sheath provides a classic, timeless look—but due to its highly fitted nature can be prone to armhole, shoulder, and waistline fit issues.
+ When the armhole of a sheath dress fits poorly, you’ll know it—and the entire dress will then fit poorly. An armhole that is set too high will cause it to dig and cut into your arm and armpit. If an armhole is set too low, the entire dress will pull up when you lift your arms. The armhole on a sheath dress should be no lower than an inch below your armpit to allow for good arm mobility.
+ A well-structured shoulder is the most important feature of a sheath dress. It’s the foundation the whole thing is built on! As with a jacket, the shoulder seam should always stop right at the end of your natural shoulder. If it extends past your shoulder and droops down toward your arm, it’s not fitting you properly.
+ Be extra careful when purchasing a sheath dress with a very fitted waist; a dress that has a seam in the wrong spot will become uncomfortable very quickly. You’ll want the waist seam to hit you right at your natural waist for maximum comfort and optimal fit. As we discussed before, your natural waist is to be found at the smallest point of your torso. So from now on, never buy a dress with a fitted, seamed waist that doesn’t hit you right at that exact spot. (You can thank me later!)
SHIFT: A shift dress is almost always sleeveless and cut to fall in a straight line down from the shoulders—not fitted to the body. Most shift dresses utilize small darts at the bust to add definition. This can result in an improper or too-tight fit across the chest if the darts hit the breasts at the incorrect spot.
STRAPLESS: A strapless dress is the trickiest style of dress to wear—but it has nothing to do with the size of your bust. The reason most strapless dresses won’t stay up is lack of proper construction at the torso and waist, where the bulk of support is supposed to come from. If you have to tug on a strapless dress all night long, it’s not providing proper support—which in plain English means (say it with me now!): it doesn’t fit! You can help a strapless dress that doesn’t have enough internal structure by wearing it with a longline bra (as discussed on this page), but as you may know by now, a garment that doesn’t fit you properly has no business taking up valuable real estate in your closet.
TANK: A tank-style dress is a good choice for those with narrower shoulders, as it is cut quite slim at the top. But beware of armholes that hang too low, exposing your bra to the world. Happily, a tank-style dress is an endlessly forgiving shape that is easy to have altered. A simple strap take-up (as discussed on this page) can solve a too–low-slung tank dress in a jiffy.
WRAP: The wrap-style dress (made famous in the early 1970s by designer Diane von Furstenberg) is named for the front closure, which is formed by wrapping one side of the dress across the other and then tying them together at the side or back. They very much resemble the classic ballerina-style wrap top, but in dress form!
+ You’ve probably heard over and over that a wrap dress will fit every single woman perfectly due to its free-form nature. It’s just too bad that couldn’t be further from the truth! This is the biggest myth in fashion, because they almost never fit a smaller-busted woman properly. The deep plunge can easily slide between small breasts, causing the fabric to gape and sag. The small-breasted woman who wants to wear a wrap dress successfully will need to employ a safety pin, snap, or bit of Topstick (double-sided toupee tape, discussed on this page) to keep the top half from falling open.
+ However, the classic wrap dress is a godsend for some larger-busted women, as it easily solves the problem of button-front style garments that won’t close properly over large boobs. They are also a great choice for pregnant women, as the waist is bump-friendly and the bustline can accommodate wild fluctuations in bra size. But chances are, no matter what your body type, you’re probably going to need a closure or a camisole to keep a wrap dress together up top.
Once you start paying close attention to fit and stop fooling yourself into buying things just because they happen to be “in style,” you’ll be amazed at how much better you look and feel in your clothes. A little bit of trend following is fine—and totally necessary to great style. But knowing what fits properly and only buying what works for you will always trump whatever is allegedly in fashion. The old idea that certain styles are definitively “in” or ”out” is dated, tired, and just plain lame. Fashion is an industry that runs solely on dissatisfaction. We could easily take the whole thing down just by deciding to be happy with ourselves! And learning what works for you, fit-wise, and being happy with it is the key to real, lasting satisfaction with your style—clothing trends and glossy know-it-all fashion rags be damned.