My Wardrobe, Myself

Summer used to be my favorite time of year in terms of getting dressed. For years, all I wore during the summer months were dresses and skirts, and I felt comfortable, attractive, and cool (temperature-wise) in my assortment of such garments. I eagerly anticipated the beginning of the summer weather, and I lamented the return of cooler days and nights when I’d need to put away my beloved warm weather clothing.

But around six years ago, that all started to change. I had gone through menopause, gained some weight, and my body was no longer as firm and toned despite my maintaining the same diet and exercise regimen. My style aesthetic had also shifted, such that many of the garments I previously loved no longer held my favor. I started to prefer wearing pants year-round, and while I still liked sporting dresses on occasion, I veered away from skirts almost completely.

There’s been a lot more trial and error with my style following menopause than during my younger years, and this has particularly been the case during the warmer months. I struggle a lot with what to wear when it’s hot out, and I have multiple summer style challenges that I’m working to overcome. In this post and my next one, I’ll highlight those challenges, how they’ve impacted me, and the ways in which I’m trying to address them.

The focus for today will be on layering, or rather, not being able to layer due to hot temperatures. There’s more to it for me than just staying cool, however, which I’ll delve into below… Part two will address challenges regarding clothing fabrication and issues with hair and makeup during the summer months.

When You Just Can’t Layer…

I don’t know about you, but I always like to include a “third piece” in my outfits. I just feel more pulled together when I can add a topper over my base layer garments. I love a good cardigan, jacket, coat, or vest, and I probably own far too many of these types of pieces for someone who lives in a temperate Southern California climate. My toppers do receive a lot of wear, though, so I don’t really mind the fact that I have a fairly large collection (although there can sometimes be too much of a good thing).

Unfortunately, there are a few months out of the year when it’s just too hot to wear most third pieces, at least during the daytime hours. Even if I leave the house wearing a topper, I need to be prepared to take it off when the temperatures inevitably rise. This has been easier said than done for me. I’ve discovered that many of my ensembles look “off” when heat necessitates removing my outermost layer. While I’ve been able to mitigate looking less put-together in just a top and a bottom by piling on fun accessories, the main issue I’ve been struggling with lately has to do with proportions.

The Golden Ratio and Our Outfits

The “golden ratio” is an artistic and architectural concept that can also be applied to fashion. It’s sometimes referred to as “the rule of thirds” in the context of style, meaning that outfits with a 1/3 to 2/3 proportion look more balanced than those that are more equally divided in half. This article from Jo-Lynne Shane outlines the rule of thirds very well, and she includes multiple examples of outfits that are well-proportioned (and a few that are not).

Upon learning about the rule of thirds, I was able to clearly see and understand why most of my outfits with toppers look “balanced” and why many of my two-piece ensembles look “off.”  A lot of my tops make up more than one-third of my outfit, but this is less noticeable when I’m wearing the long toppers that are an important part of my signature style. However, when it’s too hot for these toppers, I’m left with an outfit that comes closer to cutting me in half, which is a less flattering effect.

To Tuck or Not to Tuck

One of the “easy” solutions proposed by Jo-Lynne in her article is to tuck or half-tuck a too-long top. While I don’t think her example outfit with the untucked pink top (the second outfit shown) looks bad at all, it does look better and more balanced with the front tuck she did to create better proportions. So why don’t I just do that, then? There are several reasons why I don’t:

1. I’m very short-waisted, and I feel that I look unbalanced (like I have almost no torso!) with a tucked-in top, especially with the higher-rise pants that have been commonplace in recent years.
2. While I think the front tuck can look good in some instances, I feel like it frequently looks messy and “undone,” especially from the side.
3. I’m self-conscious about my back side and feel too “exposed” without a top at least partially covering it.

So, for those reasons, I don’t tuck or half-tuck my tops. I try to wear shorter tops that don’t break up my body as much, especially when it’s too hot for a topper. However, the fit issues I sometimes have with my pants can get in the way of my doing that. A lot of pants don’t fit me all that well in the back due to the effects of gravity on my lower half as I’ve aged. I can get a sort of “droopy” effect from not filling out the rear end of my pants completely.

Sometimes an alteration can fix the droopy pants problem (which I wrote about wanting to solve as #19 on my 2023 “wardrobe bucket list”), but that’s not always possible based upon the cut or fabric of the pants. In those cases, I usually just wear a top or topper that completely covers up the droopy area. But if it’s too hot for a topper and I just wear a long top, the proportions of my outfit can definitely be “off.”

Ways to Improve Outfit Proportions Besides Tucking

I know that even if my outfits aren’t perfect according to the golden ratio, they don’t exactly look awful or terribly unflattering. It helps that I’m tall, and I also wear heels (usually around two inches high) most of the time to give me an even longer leg-line. This helps to counteract the fact that the top half of my outfits often exceeds the one-third mark when I’m not wearing a topper (with a long topper, I usually have more of a two-thirds to one-third proportion similar to Jo-Lynne’s cardigan ensemble towards the end of her post).

In addition to wearing heels, another thing I’ve done more recently to give my summer outfits better proportions has been buying a few tops with a twist-front detail, like the ones shown below:

The twist-front is sort of like a “cheat” half-tuck that’s less fussy and stays in place more easily. The twist detail also doesn’t come up all the way to the pant waistline, so it works better on those of us with short torsos. Wearing a long necklace with the twist-front top (as shown in the center and right images above)  – or any top really – also helps to elongate the look and contribute to better proportions.

Another “trick” that I might try to help cultivate better proportions with my tops is to use a rubber band to shorten the front portion of the top in an interesting way. This post shows lots of examples for how to do this type of “tweak” to help with shirt proportions. The rubber band creates a fun “rosette” detail in the front of the top in addition to shortening it as much as desired. This won’t work with all tops, but it’s something to keep in mind and try out.

Emotional Comfort vs. Ideal Proportions

I’m sure there are other tips and tweaks that I could employ to create better proportions with my summer outfits, but the ones mentioned above are a good start. One of my biggest quandaries with summer outfits is the battle between trying to have ideal – or close to ideal – proportions and wanting to feel emotionally comfortable in what I’m wearing. My emotional comfort usually wins out because I want to mostly forget about what I’m wearing after I get dressed so I can focus instead on enjoying what I’m doing. After all, as Diana Vreeland aptly said,

“It’s not about the dress you wear, but the life you lead in the dress.”

Of course, that great quote also applies to the pants, tops, and whatever else we’re wearing. Clothes are supposed to support the lives we’re leading, not be the “main event.” But when I’m self-conscious in what I’m wearing, I find it difficult to just relax and be present in the activities of the moment. So, if I have to choose between wearing a “golden ratio” outfit that has me feeling self-conscious versus wearing an ensemble that cuts me in half that I feel emotionally comfortable in, I’ll choose the latter almost every time.

What’s Most Important

In fact, this entire discussion begs an important question:

Do we need to cultivate the “golden ratio” with all our outfits – or even any of them?

I would say that the answer is no. Yes, it may be called the rule of thirds, but it’s more of a guideline that we can either choose to follow or not. Of course, some outfits are more conventionally flattering than others, and ensembles that “cut us in half” may not look as good as those that follow the one-third to two-thirds (or vice-versa) ratio. But I feel that it’s more important for us to feel good in our clothes!

Overcoming Negative Body Image

I’ve been battling a negative body image for most of my life and I don’t see myself the way that others see me. I’m sure that some of the outfits that I feel uncomfortable wearing actually look fine or even good on me, but I don’t want to fidget or obsess to the point at which I’m not enjoying what I’m doing in my clothes! I feel that style should be fun, and our clothes shouldn’t get in the way of our enjoyment, connection, and peace. So, if that means that some of my summer outfits divide my body in two, so be it!

Of course, I will continue to work on overcoming my body image issues, and hopefully I’ll eventually get to a point where I’m more comfortable in my own skin such that I feel freer to wear a wider variety of styles and silhouettes. This has been a very difficult journey for me, however, and it is the main remnant of my decades-long battle with eating disorders. I feel like I finally have a hard-won healthy relationship with food, but my negative body image has proven more difficult to conquer.

I think I need to re-read Beyond Beautiful and apply some of the wonderful lessons in that book to my own life, as I would love to cultivate much better body image before I leave this earth! I’ll also re-read my own two-part series on body image from 2018 (see HERE and HERE), which includes excellent tips from some of my friends. Negative body image is my Achilles’ Heel (or at least one of them!), but if I was able to recover from anorexia and bulimia, developing body neutrality has to be possible.

Conclusion – and Your Thoughts?

I’m sure that some of you could relate to the summer style struggles that I wrote about in today’s post, and perhaps you’ve also been able to overcome them. If you have suggestions that might be helpful to me and others related to outfit proportions, body image challenges, and emotional comfort, please feel free to share them here. I also welcome your thoughts about your own summer style struggles, even if they’re very different from mine. We can learn a lot from each other, and our sharing our experiences and challenges can also help us to feel less alone.

Thank you so much for reading! I’ll be back soon with more of my summer style issues in part two of this short series. Other topics that I plan to write about in the coming weeks include lessons from my outfit journal, my favorite summer clothes and outfits, and my recent shopping winners and losers. Best wishes to you for the remainder of August!