Thursday, November 12, 2015

Styling for Short Legs: Skirts

It's not so bad being short. I never have a problem with legroom. I have excellent balance. I can squeeze through crowds. But buying pants is a lost cause and petite sections are so lame.

Moreover, clothes aren't designed for us short-legged people. I don't know how many times I bought a "knee-length" skirt only to have it reach my shins, or, even more common, a maxi skirt that I could wear as a full-body dress.

Personally, I think it's a great time to be a short-legged person, as we have a lot of style options to create an optical illusion of longer legs:

short legs

(shorter paper dolls represent short person, whereas the left-hand doll is the tall/average height. I noticed that I'm about a head shorter than most people my size, so I just chopped off a head-length from the legs above)


Namely, the main optical illusion I recommend, which works for me, is wearing a high waisted skirt with matching leggings/tights, creating a continuous line that tricks the eye into thinking your torso is tiny while your legs are long. by the way, this only works with skirts, since they hide where your legs begin.

From left to right, I think I show how to create the longest-looking legs. The worst is having a solid color from neck to thigh, which makes your torso look long and your legs look short.



Next is wearing a high-waisted skirt, with a crop top that shows a little bit of skin. This at least breaks up the torso, and gives the illusion that your legs start up higher on your body.

platforms, help of course.
 The traditional advice was to go black from head to toe, a solid line, which works. My only problem with that is that it kind of looks matronly. And you always look ultramodern, which is cool of course, but it gets old.




Also, I think you can make it look as though your legs are even longer, as in the photo below. Combine both principles: head to high waist one color, and wear a cropped shirt showing an artificially high waist. In the below photo, I'm not even wearing heels or platforms, and I look like I'm proportional.




Are you also one of us short-legged folks? Do you have a style tip, let me know in the comments!

12 comments:

  1. I am certainly a short legged folk. I'm 5"2. But for some reason I never have a problem finding clothes that fit. Maybe it's because I literally never wear anything that isn't high-waisted and shockingly short? Who knows!

    Great tips though!

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    1. Or you could match the proportions the manufacturers use. There are short people who are small humans, and there are short people who are missing length in their legs. Sounds like you're one of the lucky former!

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  2. I'm also quite short so shopping for trousers is absolute hell. I much prefer wearing dresses and skirts. I always wear black tights and I love wearing short (skater) skirts.

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    1. Lol I've completely given up on pants. Skater skirts are also cool. Wish I had more of them!

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  3. I have found a few pair of pants that work (a whole whopping 2 pairs!) but most of the time I am in skirts. I am also pretty darned short and have the same problem. I also have very large thighs so I am very cautious of high waisted skirts

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    1. Long skirts would also work. Probably better since they hide your knees, so the proportions will be completely hidden. Also a continuous line will look longer.

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  4. It is hopeless for buying pants but I do appreciate being able to buy a too short dress or a tunic and use it as a decent length dress! Ha ha!

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  5. I'm 5'4'' , so I'd say I'm rather short , but I have a short torso and longer legs.. I usually get a problem with the pants' waistbands , what for other people is mid-rise, for me it's high-waisted..

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  6. Love the look! And I guess even people with long/normal length legs would like to make them look even longer. :)

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  7. And here I was, thinking short legged people would simply have to cut off a few cms of pants / skirts *blushes*

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