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Does More Weight Mean More Romantic?

4/30/2018

Despite the fact that we women are taught almost from birth to obsess about the appearance our bodies, what looks good on us is determined almost completely by our faces. (Read more about this here.)

Style systems that rely much more on body shape are probably going to put a disproportionate number of heavier women into the Romantic category.

That's often going to be a mistake, though. There are plenty of really big ladies who just aren't flattered by velvet and draping and ruching.

Chrissy Metz is an example of one. Romantic is much too mature for her, despite what some people would call her "womanly" figure.

Some styles systems would call this curvy woman Romantic, based only on her body. But velvet, jeweled detail, and cleavage emphasis just aren't great on her.

See how cute she is here? Regardless of how "womanly" her body is, she needs a cute and youthful look.

She looks best when she dresses for her super-cute face, not her curvy body.

What about as a person gains or loses weight -- if one's face becomes more or less rounded, does this add or remove Romantic Style ID?

Women with a lot of Romantic essence tend to have very rounded and characteristically feminine features -- full lips, full cheeks, narrow chins, high foreheads.

I do think additional weight can sometimes add Romantic to a face.

But OTOH, it can add Gamine or Ingenue instead, by making the face appear rounder and cuter. There's overlap on those points between Romantic, Gamine, and Ingenue.

I think it takes a lot of weight change to make a significant change in one's Style ID.

And features that tend to read as R -- luscious lips, delicate chins, high foreheads, sexy eyes -- are often pretty stable, regardless of weight.

Star Jones famously had a big weight change. I think she had a good bit of Romantic before -- I liked her in blingy jewelry, lace, and a smoky eye.

Did she lose some Romantic when she lost a ton of weight? Perhaps. I can identify a few changes. Younger Star's nose reads as tiny and delicate in the context of her fleshier face; when her face is leaner, her nose reads as more strong and angular. Her overall face, though still somewhat rounded, appears a bit narrower. Maybe there's a bit more Natural or Dramatic?

But she's still pretty good in curls and cleavage emphasis. I think she retains a lot of her Romantic from before.

Star Jones' weight loss was reportedly over 100 pounds. If that really big change in a person's body results in only minor changes to the face, it's reasonable to expect that a person's style identity won't change much from less drastic changes in weight.

28 Comments

Lilac

4/30/2018 12:47:34 pm

Hi Rachel. What would be your advice for a curvy girl with an ingenue/gamine face? Should I just ignore my body type?

Katja

5/3/2018 03:29:59 am

I'm not Rachel, but maybe I can help. If you have a Ingenue/Gamine face you should dress in a Ingenue/Gamine way. If a woman have a curvy/womanly body but no Romantic in her face she should avoid dressing too sexy.

ruby

5/3/2018 04:47:55 pm

I totally agree with this, a friend of mine is romantic in the body but gamine / ingenue / classic face, I can't imagine her in romantic 'sexy' clothing.

4/30/2018 01:20:40 pm

So helpful! There's such a push to overhaul one's wardrobe at the slightest change in weight. This is so much more sane.

A question for you a spring is blooming: does tanning affect style ID or seasonal coloring much? I wonder if freckles/tans affect style ID at all, or if they are completely independent of it. Is a freckled person likely to read as youthful, or tanned as natural, or someone whose complexion is unchanging (can't tan, pale as a vampire always, say) going to read in some other way? Would that cause people to then dress more casual/natural or youthful in the summer?

4/30/2018 05:01:40 pm

Same question about hair colour

5/3/2018 04:46:02 am

Hi Lilac, a different hair colour doesn't change your style-ID. But if you are for instance a natural blonde Ethereal/Ingenue and you dye your hair black you will end up looking Goth and that would be unflattering for you and for your style-ID. My advice is: never go too far from your natural hair colour!
Another hair colour doesn't change your season either. In colour analysis the most important thing is how your skin reacts to colours not how your hair reacts to colours. But if you choose an unflattering hair colour it will of course affect the way your skin is looking.

5/3/2018 03:45:15 am

Hi W, tanning can affect seasonal colouring. If you are tanned you are able to wear deeper colours of your seasonal palette. You can handle more colour. But it doesn't change your season. A tan can also change your contrast. If your skin is darker there will be less difference between your hair and skin.

Many Gamines and Naturals are freckled and many Naturals are tanned, but far from everybody. Freckles are associated with youth and tan is associated with Natural, but I think you can find freckles and tan in any style-ID.

Nancy

5/1/2018 06:50:22 am

Why beat around the bush? Fat is fat. Curvy is curvy. Some women are both fat and curvy and some are just fat. Some are just curvy.
Obesity has nothing to do with the Romantic style-ID.

5/1/2018 09:04:41 pm

Disappointing amounts of fatphobia in the comments. The moment I think an internet community is a neutral place that will let bigger women live and let live, some jerk decides it's necessary to run folks down and scream their opinions and false concern for her health. Pathetic. We ALL knew what Rachel meant, and can see the pictures. What purpose did any of this discourse serve other than to shame women of a certain size who might be reading this post, who are trying to contextualize their beauty, like every other visitor to this site? Y'all are a goddamn minefield.

Gabriella

5/2/2018 03:27:33 am

K, I don't have fatphobia and I don't want to shame women of a certain size. I do not know how this became a discussion about obesity, shame and health. This is a style blog!
I know what Rachel meant and I agree with her when she wrote that many style systems incorrectly put heavier women into the Romantic category. A Romantic is not big and heavy. A Romantic is small and delicate. I think it should be an aim of any styling system to use descriptive words precisely. Otherwise, how could we get a correct style-ID?

5/2/2018 05:14:18 am

There are actually overweight women that do fit into the Romantic category but that is not because they are fat. Its because of their romantic features. I think Adele might be one of those. She might have Ingenue as well and probably some more essences. Natural? Ethereal?
I also believe that if she would lose weight she would look even more Romantic. I saw some considerably slimmer pictures of her and the loss of fat made her Romantic features more pronounced. Fat can actually hide Romantic.

5/3/2018 04:05:58 am

I'm not sure about Adele having Romantic. Yes, she looks Romantic on stage in a Romantic makeup and in Romantic outfits, but when I look at pics of her wearing no makeup she looks more Ingenue to me. What other essences do you think she might have? What do you think Rachel?

Lena

5/3/2018 05:06:53 am

Could she have Gamine?

sibyl

5/2/2018 05:42:08 am

But here's why this discussion had to go beyond style, among other reasons: Adele is perceived as being overweight. But she is at a perfectly normal, average, healthy weight, the woman next door. While some of the stars might be naturally and thus healthily skinny (it's almost a condition to become a star in the first place after all), most of them are extremely underweight. No wonder too many people believe that most of us are all overweight. It's just not real!
That's also why I have a hard time getting style IDs explained with celebrity examples. All I see is skeletons. They all look the same, I never know who is who, few faces are memorable, and in addition they change their hair colors all the time...

5/2/2018 08:15:21 am

Adele is not just perceived as being overweight. She is overweight. Everyone can see that. Adele herself knows that too. But I agree, many celebrities look like skeletons. That's not beautiful at all. There is something wrong with our beauty ideals. But this is not really about that. This is about style-IDs and using descriptive words precisely.

Rachel wrote about whether more weight affects your style-ID or not. And I don't think being overweight or being a skeleton significantly affects ones style-ID. It's not really an issue of flesh. It's more about features.

5/2/2018 11:23:24 am

"Over" in overweight implies that there is too much of something to be healthy or functional. Adele looks like she is in excellent health and fitness, which she has to be for the physically taxing job she does. So the "over" part refers to the contemporary sick beauty ideal alone, and that is what Adele knows. Truly sad. Definitions have to be changed back to reasonable.
I agree that style IDs don't change with weight. I actually think they don't even change slightly, as features (which only go more hollow or fuller, but underneath stay exactly the same) and personality are so tightly linked.

Rachel

5/2/2018 03:16:10 pm

Hi, everyone! A couple of things:

- Bridey pretty much nailed my thinking on my word choice in this piece. "Morbidly obese" or even "obese" could possibly be an appropriate word to use in a doctor's office, but I see it as an inappropriate word to use in the context of this article. I'm writing only about women's shape, not their health status.

- I've deleted a couple of comments that I judged would come across as mean or hurtful to women who consider themselves big or fat or overweight or curvy or obese. If you wrote one of those comments, it's not personal; I just want my comments section (and my whole site, for that matter) to be a place where women feel better about themselves, not worse. I hope you'll comment again.

5/2/2018 05:18:37 pm

This is your space and I respect your choice, but why are you then permitting medically irresponsible comments that reduce any discussion about the obesity epidemic to “fatphobia”? (Or comments about skeletons, for that matter, if you wish to avoid hurtful comments?) You might consider a rule against any comments about weight.There are blogs and forums that do this successfully. As it is, you are enforcing arbitrary parameters, writing a blogpost that vaguely alludes to a certain body type, and then requesting that we intuit what you mean, and completely skirt around the issue to avoid offense. It’s an entirely unsuccessful approach.

5/2/2018 09:04:30 pm

I'm sorry if you're not happy with the way I'm moderating these comments. To be honest, I rarely feel I need to moderate comments here, because people rarely say things I judge to be wounding. In this case, I did judge a few comments were really hurtful, and I removed them. Decisions like that will inevitably seem arbitrary to some people, I think, because there's just one person making the decision -- me. If it helps, know that pretty much the only time I'll remove a comment is if I think it makes women feel bad about themselves. I won't allow that here. I guess I didn't make that clear, but in my defense I have never seen the need to declare it -- everyone is generally kind.

I don't feel obliged to delete scientifically or medically inaccurate statements, though I might if this were a medical advice website. As it is,
I assume we all are smart and can determine what's science and what's junk without too much difficulty.

Catherine Cooper

5/3/2018 04:48:46 pm

This is a very helpful post . I have a plus size hourglass figure, but romantic clothes look silly. Classic clothes look even sillier- the worst thing i could wear is a suit, it just looks absurd and unprofessional, like its a costume. I actually look more competent wearing a relatively restrained gamine/ingenue outfit then anything classic. Of course i can't wear every gamine/ingenue line successfully- i simply wear the lines in that category that don't utterly clash with my figure. I truly appreciate Rachel's thoughtful, analytical, thorough treatment of this subject.

Mary Ellen

5/4/2018 07:00:05 pm

I carry more weight than the weight charts would recommend. This has alway been a struggle for me, but I am learning not to judge myself. Anyway, I carry my weight through my bust and torso while my legs and arms are more slender. Even when I get down to my “ideal” weight, I have the same shape. I am a Natural-Enginue and will never be a romantic, no matter how much I gain or lose. I pray that there will be a day when we all can be non-judge mental towards ourselves and others no matter our weight, color of our skin, etc... Rachel, your honest, sensitive approach to helping us all look better is awesome!!!

BrandiD

5/4/2018 07:16:13 pm

I find this so helpful, because I'm 43 and a pretty definite Natural Ingenue. I have tried to dress straight Natural, thinking that Ingenue didn't work with my older age and weight gain, but I look ridiculous (and older, and heavier) when I try to deny my Ingenue side. Kibbe instructions to move into Romantic didn't help either -- I have feminine attributes but sexy clothes look ridiculous on me. Seeing older, heavier women in Ingenue pieces helps me visualize what my style should look like at this point. Keep these posts coming, Rachel! They are so helpful!

5/4/2018 10:05:22 pm

A shout out to my Natural-Enginue friends who aren’t under 20 and skinny! -:)

5/19/2018 01:28:28 pm

Clara

5/4/2018 11:44:42 pm

Hi! Not related to this at all, but I was wondering. What Style do you think favours Kristen Stewart the most? I think
she is a classic, but also maybe dramatic?

5/5/2018 03:30:48 am

Hi Clara, Kristen Stewart has been typed as Gamine/Dramatic/Natural/Ethereal. Her first essences are Gamine and Dramatic. Her second essences are Natural and Ethereal. I think that might be right.

Circé

5/20/2018 04:40:23 am

Hi everyone! I was wondering if maybe a bit of weight could also add Natural, for a classic or dramatic person, since it would « blunt » the squares and sharp angles?

5/23/2018 11:51:59 am

Hi Rachel! I was wondering if weight could also add Natural to a Dramatic or maybe Classic person, since it would "blunt and enlarge" the rectangle/square. What would be your thoughts on that?

Truth is Beauty

Does More Weight Mean More Romantic?

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