Fashion Q&A
It’s likely that you’re not quite happy with your body right now. No judgy. Christmas is not long gone and it’s too hot out for anyone sensible to look at their trainers with anything other than disdain. So if you’re feeling a touch, well, doughy, then we sympathise. Should you fancy ditching that spare tyre, we’d support that move (every extra inch around your middle is bad news for your life expectancy, after all), but we also appreciate that exercise’s more aesthetic benefits aren’t immediate. So therefore we’re glad to let you know that there are some less drastic, wardrobe-based solutions that can ditch kilos, even if your scales stay the same. By deft manipulation of proportion and silhouette, you can build a new you, distracting from less appealing areas and shifting the spotlight to your strengths. Consider it a stopgap while you wait for those dumbbells to arrive.
Fit & You Know It
The burlier man tends to size up; hoping excess fabric will conceal what’s below. Not so. Like an elephant in a big top, you’re just expanding your silhouette. Skin-tight is inadvisable, but slimmer fits prevent billowing fabric; find shirts that are snug in the shoulder then have them tailored to nip in at the waist to lengthen boxy torsos. For best effect, wear tucked into trousers worn high, ideally with braces.
Wear dark colour clothes / No Patterns!
In dark colour clothes people look thin. So go for black, dark blue or any other dark colour clothes and it will create an illusion that you are few pounds thinner. DO NOT WEAR PATTERNS OF ANY KIND: STRIPES, CAMO…
Feeling Trim
The right haircut can create the illusion of angles. Go closer to the skin on the back and sides and keep it slightly longer and more textured on top. The contrast squares your head, sharpening up curves. Below the chin, a beard creates edges from nothing. Then mask a double chin by leaving growth lower down, but trimming the hair tighter on your cheeks.
Wear low rise bottoms
Don’t wear trousers and jeans that hit at your waist, instead wear a low rise bottoms. Waistband of your trousers should be large enough so that your belly shouldn’t stick out over your pants.
Waist Not, Want Not
If you’re not the kind of guy to wear a suit, start. Or at least, reach for a blazer. Tailors have exhausted lifetimes exploring ways to make portly dudes look trim, the pinnacle of which is the suppressed waist – fabric that pinches in at navel height to create a strong V from your shoulders. But you’ll need an expert hand, if only to adjust offthe-rack. It’s also why you should opt for one- or two-button jackets, which expose more shirt to lengthen your torso.