Megan: A Sandy Spring
Megan is the seventh client we (personal stylist Margo Passadore and I) took to Nordstrom in downtown Portland for a “Before and After” photo shoot.
Megan is a sporty gal who bikes across town to work at the Nature Conservancy, which suits her environmentally-conscious lifestyle. She is a Sandy Spring, which means she looks best in easy natural styles, and in colors with a tawny tinge that enhance her mostly warm coloring. She wears no makeup.
She’s slim and 5’10” tall with a rectangular body shape. Her biggest challenge is finding shoes for her size 11 feet: the choices are limited and/or they can be too expensive.
Megan’s “Before and Afters”
#1 Before (on left, above):
- The lavender color is too cool and the pattern too small and busy for a tall woman.
- The shapeless dress hides her figure, making her look like a column even though she does have a waist. The length is too matronly for her.
- The shoes are way too heavy for the dress (dark color and clunky design) and draw your eye to her feet instead of her face.
#1 After (on right, above):
- The brick jersey top nicely brings out her skin tones and hair color.
- A wide v-neck creates width at her shoulders and the straight-across sleeves at bust level helps also. (If your arms are not as toned as Megan’s an angled sleeve is better.)
- The side tuck shows she has a waist and creates interest with the diagonal line.
- The skinny crop pants work well because of her height and give more width at the hip. With the appearance of more width at bust and hip, her waist seems smaller.
- Neutral color shoes blend with her legs and keep the focus on her face where it should be.
#2 Before (on left, above):
- The pastel mint top again is too cool a color for her. Proportionally, there’s just too much of it and it’s too “flowy” for her sportier style.
- While the wide leg cropped pants could work on her if her top were more fitted, the effect here it to create a column similar to the purple dress.
- The shoes….. as above.
#2 After (on right, above):
- Having top and pants be the same warm ivory color creates a monochromatic base base for adding accent or statement pieces.
- The dark green part of the sweater is one of Megan’s best colors and as it flares lower down it brings in the color of the pants, making it feel lighter.
- The fitted top and the sweater over it show Megan’s small waist.
- We should have pushed up her sleeves to break up the long vertical lines :).
- The ankle length straight pants are the best choice for almost every body type (although someone with wide shoulders might be better off with a boot cut) and make for a nice line from the hips down – good for jeans too!
The Shoes:
As noted above, finding attractive shoes in size 11 is a challenge. These are by Paul Green and cost about $200. (Out of stock by now.) The metallic finish can be a godsend for most people because they blend well with the skin, look light weight, and feel festive with anything and everything. The key is to find the correct metal color (silver, gold, copper, bronze, rose-gold) for your skin tone. Rose-gold is ok for Megan; bronze or copper would be even better.
If you’d like to have your own custom color palette done or have questions, call me at (360) 903-3659 or email me here.