Part III Your Ultimate Guide: 7 Rules To Look Less Frumpy

Tina, here.

This post is part of a 3-part series, How To Look Less Frumpy. For Part I and II have been published. Complete Insiders can find the entire series here.

The secret need of most women is not how to be more "in style", but how to have enduring style. The A Number One rule for how to have enduring and fabulous style is to learn how to dress less frumpy (or rather less frumpily ). Tired of your style? Bored with your wardrobe? What about a muffin top? Double chin? Thunder thighs? Good dressing is a game of millimeters, dolls. An outfit can be made or ruined by the length of your skinny jeans, or the toe of your shoes, the way you button your blouses and sweaters, the way a pashmina sits on your shoulders or where the back pockets of your jeans hit your bum. Since none of these issues are really that important considering what's going on in the world and the fact that we all need to be spending as little time as possible worrying about how we look and dress, I'm going to solve these dilemmas for you right now so you can get on with living out your calling, whatever that may be. It's when clothes are wrong that they become over-important because we are worried about ourselves, and not the ones we love. This will be fun. And easy, I promise. Be sure to check all month long for exclusive Insider access to early shopping and fun resources. And have you seen the latest exclusive content inside the Complete Vault? Scroll through to see which posts and videos you may have missed lately!

Your Ultimate Guide: 7 Rules To Look Less Frumpy

Rules At A Glance, Part III*

*For Part I and II, click here. Complete Insiders can find the entire series here.

3. Untuck It

4. Layer It

Numbers 5. - 7., the other three rules for how to look less frumpy, are further down the post.

Ok here we go. None of these rules are hard to practice. In fact, they'll all pretty much have you saying, Oh! Why didn't I think of that?! because they are relatively small tweaks to what you're already doing, but will give you massive, positive results. Not even kidding. You won't believe the compliments you'll start getting. People will wonder if you lost weight or had a facelift because you will look so good. Without doing anything drastic.

3. Untuck It

Hands up for this rule! So many women prefer the comfort of untucking to tucking. Tops you can wear untucked? It has more to do with what you're wearing on the bottom than it does with what kind of top you're wearing. Lean, skinny jeans or pants? Untucked blouses look beautiful. Elastic waist pants or joggers? Definitely leave your tops untucked to avoid the paper bag and muffin top effect. What about pencil skirts? Tuck the blouse in, OR wear an untucked but fitted top, scrunched around your hips. What about loose-fitting pants like palazzo pants or flared jeans? Tucking in a blouse or scrunching a fitted top will look best to balance out the fullness below. The idea is that if you want to wear an untucked blouse, it will look best with skinny or ankle pants to balance out the fullness. Otherwise you forfeit the suggestion of an hourglass.

Before: paper bag syndrome.

After: cleaner lines and a more flattering shape.

4. Layer It

The problem a lot of women have with pencil skirts and skinny jeans is that they tend to hug our curves. A great counter-point is to wear a longer top that covers your bum. But that disrupts the hourglass because we now no longer have a waist and our legs look shorter. The hourglass is lost when the bust - waist - hips proportions are off-balance. The solution is to layer a shorter jacket or sweater over your longer top so it hits you right where you would want your natural waist to be.

My denim jacket is not cropped; but it is a shrunken fit (I am not crazy about the trucker-style, oversized denim jackets right now). It hits me right about where my natural waist would be in a perfect hourglass world, bringing balance and proportion back to my figure.

It is perfectly fine for your longer top to peek out from under a shorter jacket.

A few more tips for how to look less frumpy:

5. Wear (the right) Shapewear

If your boobs droop down to your belly button, you know you can lift them, non-surgically, right? When you raise your boobs with a supportive bra, you get them out of your waist area's real estate, once again releasing it to do what it does best: create the illusion of a waistline. Next to the right bra, shaping biker shorts are my very favorite piece.

Related: Which Cami Do I Wear? (Complete Insiders)

6. Choose Prints In Scale With Your Frame

The larger the print you put on your body, the larger you will look. Too "twee" prints, like little calico flowers and tiny polka dots, unfortunately, don't create the opposite effect. They just make you look juvenile and make us dizzy looking at you.

7. Choose V-Necks Every Time

This rule is HUGE. A v-neck top opens you up, gives you a longer neck, and draws attention to the center of your frame, creating a long, lean line; whereas a crew neck creates a wide, horizontal plane at your bust line, making you and your boobs look disproportionately wide. Caveat: if you're wearing a sheath with a crew neck, just add a necklace to break up the neckline.

So there you have it. The 7 Rules To Look Less Frumpy. Follow these and you're golden. Now, get on with your life! For more of the best in Fall jeans, black pants (including slit hem), pretty blouses, sweaters and more, check out our recent blogs. And stay tuned for more exclusive Complete Style Vault membership perks like pre-releases of videos and shopping guides coming your way all fall!

Thanks for reading,

Tina

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