Oversized, Undersized - 
What's the Right Size

April 19, 2024

So this gets into proportion, and that's garnered some definitions that include magic, voodoo, and a lot of hooey when it's not that hard.  Proportion is often used when a designer or fashion person doesn't know what else to describe some feature of a garment.  

Then you get into those pesky rules, principles, parts, and elements, and who can keep track of all that stuff?  

The truth is that when I studied this stuff, I thought it was a bunch of hooey.  I did think that it was some boring stuff that someone invented to look smart.  Or worse, some teacher type did it so they could put it on a test and categorize something that was uncategorizable!  I'm not sure that's a word, but it describes how I felt at the time I was in art school.  But I learned it and thought when I was studying it at first that this might have some use for someone who had a lot of time to look at it.  But now that I'm older and wiser, I really do see the value of this.  It's too bad I didn't have an art teacher who made this come alive at the time.

Now that I'm teaching, it matters a lot and helps a person communicate about artistic ethereal concepts that are so totally abstract that there's no way you can touch them.  I mean how do you touch and put proportion on a pedestal and paint it, and yet, without proportion, your painting isn't going to look right.

Even when something is not in proportion, if it's done right, it doesn't look wrong - like Helen Bonham-Carter's head in Alice in Wonderland.   It works here.

Like this painting, which looks right at first glance, but then you look at poor Venus's neck and it's all tilted and curved like the right side is way longer than the left side, and her shoulder on her right side is really much lower than her left.  But even when you know that it still works.  

So what's a person to do about proportion?  First, what is it?  It's basically how a certain part or parts appear in relation to other part or parts.  It mostly has to do with size, but sometimes, in can include line (like in Botticelli's paining above), and sometimes it's simply space - one is larger or smaller and how they relate with each other, maybe even to send a message.

Small vs Large - from the movie North by Northwest which actually wasn't filmed at Mt. Rushmore, but at a sound stage, but added a lot of intensity to the movie all the same.

So when we start to think of fashion, and hear proportion, then we're likely to also hear line, style and some other descriptors like that, which can sound rather heady and vague.  

We can begin to sense what's right and wrong, mainly when it's dramatic. These two photos were actually together and show white pants for summer—one is a pair I would make instantly for myself, and the other looks literally like a mistake.

With the over-emphasis on size - either too small or too big, that seems like something left over from the last 30 years of fashion and certainly nothing new.  While the other view with a fitted but not skin-tight silhouette, it looks downright modern and fresh.

Then there are some thing that look like they should be off, but aren't.  The big top works with the pants, because the pants have some line and style to them whereas the top doesn't.  

Even today some things have such fantastic line, that it defies explanation.  One of the most fabulously "lined-out" pattern companies is StyleArc.  The line and cut of those patterns are amazingly right on target.  The design and line in the cut of those pants is so subtle that it doesn't look like it's much.  But the cut is so pleasing to the eye, with our eye being so trained to have the lower thigh, upper knee area so shaped, and the rest of the pant a little looser, then the bottom a lot fuller, it looks like you have Amal Clooney pants without her height or her thinness.

And I'm up in weight and shorter every day!  The cut on this pant is so good, that it looks like it belongs only to an Apple or Rectangle, but this Hourglass/Pear is looking pretty good.    

To help with this proportion dilemma is one of Yves St. Laurent's most profound quotes, and remember hearing it and thinking, dang, that guy really knows his stuff!

Here they are - Seven parts of the body and if you show about 2 or 3, you're good.

• Shoulder
• Décolletage & Bust
• Waist
• Hips
• Legs
• Back
• Silhouette

You show too many and you're a tart, show too few and you're a bag lady.

It's amazing how that little list can save a designer or sewists a whole lot of trouble.

One in a pair of pants that's absolutely lost, no matter how classic the colors, and yet...

Another with even a too-tight blouse, but it works, and we know it works just by the delight in the second one, with the ugh feeling of the first one.  It's all because the proportions are so good.  It's fun to play a little with this when trends like oversized and undersized become prevalent, but proportion helps us keep this in check so it doesn't become too weird.

Here, the oversized jacket/coat and shoes are just plainly too much.  It's a "show" look.  It's meant to jar your mind because the designer wants you to remember the look.  The problem is that with the lack of excellent editors in fashion these days, or probably more the lack of press that the editors have, this sort of over-emphasis, get's carried away, and becomes too exaggerated and looks trendy for a short time, but dates it so quickly that the outfit doesn't age well at all.  

Like the 1980s shoulder pad that got carried away, the oversized trend does the same thing.  

Proportion keeps our eye and mind more neutral.  So that even when there are some mistakes (from right to right: no focal point in the outfit, lace camisole too revealing, shirt is askew or not fitting right, and white pants too baggy), it still works because the preponderance of what's right is so good.  

And then, when everything is correct, it looks - normal.  The biggest problem with proportion is that it can even look dull when it's right, but a closer look can tell you it's right!  

So it's OK to play with an oversized look.  I'm a little under-sized thing right now.  But the oversized look shouldn't get too much, or it overtakes the whole outfit, and then the proportion ghost comes to haunt you!  Summer is the perfect weather and time for that oversized white shirt. As long as you have something contained with it, such as a skirt, pants, or even leggings, it works.  Get anything too bulky with it, and you'll be flopping around like an oversized nun.  

The SewingArtistry Resource Library is designed to contain information to not only make your sewing better, but to aid in you fitting and flattering your shape, size and style.  Check it out. 

Look for future classes coming in 2024
The Core Pattern Shirt, (one of my favorites for woven core pattern that you can make into a myriad of different garments), 
Basic Knit Top (core pattern class for knit basic tops, shells, tees, dresses, and tunics)
 

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