If you’re here you want to learn how to dress the Inverted Triangle Body Shape. In this article I’ll introduce you to the best options for your figure and I’ll also show you how the different silhouettes would suit you so you can decide for yourself. It’s all about dressing your unique shape, so there’s no right or wrongs.
Remember, look at the drawings and decide for yourself which ones you like the best!
You are an Inverted Triangle if the width of your shoulders is bigger than your waist and your hips. You have very little shaping around the waist and thus giving the illusion of an inverted triangle.
The trick to find the Perfect Trousers for your Inverted Triangle Body Shape, is by adding volume to the bottom part of your body. This will make you look more balanced instead of top heavy. Your trousers should:
This is for your body shape but don’t forget about your body proportions, that will also have an effect on the final look.
When talking about waistlines, they can do two things. They can tell our eyes where the waist should be, and they can help change our body proportions. Here you have the 3 main waistlines: the high waisted, the mid-rise and the low waisted.
An inverted triangle should lean towards low to mid-rise waistlines to draw more attention to the lower part of your body. I believe the waistband has more to do with body proportions than body shape, so let’s see how to change that:
The waistline height is not the only thing you can change, you can also make it wider and narrower. I have researched this and concluded that the width of the waistband has more to do with how to balance the total outfit than with only the trousers. This means I will not explain that here.
One other design change we can do is modifying the length of the trousers. The first reason to do that is the change of weather, for summer we’re probably going to wear shorts and in winter long trousers. The other reason to change the length is to balance your body proportions.
The image shows the main lengths that have an official name, but remember you can make them as long or short as you want. Now let’s look into how to change the proportions:
It’s all about balance. It can be that you are very proportionate but love high-waisted trousers. The high waist will elongate your legs and shorten your torso, so you can balance that look by shortening the legs of the pants. Play around and see what look suits you best.
The leg-lines are the best way to add or remove volume from areas in your body. In other words, you can change the illusion of your figure to find the Perfect Trousers for your Inverted Triangle Body Shape.
We’re talking about 6 main leg-lines: the slim, the tapered, the straight, the boot cut, the bell bottoms and finally the wide legs.
As an inverted triangle, we have to add volume to the lower part of our body. This means that the best leg-lines for this body shape are the boot cut, the bell bottoms, and the wide legs. Try to balance the volume on your shoulders with the volume you add to the leg-lines. Inverted triangle shapes should also stay away from skinny silhouettes because they will emphasise the top.
If I look at this picture, I actually agree with the theory, but remember to decide for yourself which one you like the most!
Let’s see what we can add to our trousers design to draw attention to certain areas. By drawing attention, the details will help change the illusion of your body shape.
There’s a bunch of design details but here’s a few of them:
As we already discussed, the inverted triangle body shape needs to add volume to different areas, so any detail will work for this shape. In fact, the more details the better! And the lower the details (like turn ups) also the better. But don’t take my word for it, look at it for yourself.
The last thing we’re going to look into is changing the colour and the fabrics to make our trousers. These two things will help balance the look.
Fabrics can be light weight or heavy weight (or in between of course). Light fabrics will soften your figure by adapting to the natural curves. Heavier fabrics will do the opposite and will make you look stiffer and accentuate the parts that are already big.
Colours, on the other hand, will give the change the perception of your curves. Darker colours will slimmer your look and lighter colours will make you look wider. If you don’t believe me, look at the picture on the left.
By combining these two things, we can balance any look! If you think you added too much volume to your leg-line, just choose a darker colour. And if you chose a tapered leg-line, go for a soft fabric.
Now you’re one step closer to learning how to dress the inverted triangle body shape. And if you’re still confused, I made this matrix to show you all the possible combinations. I only added trousers that have an “official” name, but of course you can make any design you want!
On the horizontal line I show you the leg-lines and the vertical line has the foundations. Remember to play around with waistlines, lengths, details, fabrics and colours. The world is your oyster!!
When learning how to dress the inverted triangle body shape, tops will have the biggest effect on changing the body proportions. This is because tops will influence the 3 main points: the shoulders, the waist and the hips. Remember that the body shape theory only looks at one dimension, so take into account your body proportions and the size of your chest when choosing a design!
Tops can be divided in 6 parts: the shape, the silhouette, neckline, sleeve, length and fabric and colours.
The first two go hand in hand and will be the same for all the body shapes. In general, the idea is to always define the waist as much as possible, but of course, this is personal preference so I won’t go too much into it. Once you’ve decided the shape around the waist, it’s time to look into the silhouette. This can be done by moving or converting darts into volume or details. You can do that in two ways:
Let’s add an example. If you are an inverted triangle, you could separate the top and bottom of your design and add gathers to compensate the shoulders. Or if you have small breasts and you want them to appear larger, you can add gathers around your bust. Play around and see what works for you!
Now let’s look into the other characteristics.
The first thing we see in a top is the neckline. To understand how it can change our body type, let’s separate them into groups: the width, the depth and the shape.
Let’s start with the width. Necklines can be either Wide or Narrow. Wide necklines will widen the shoulder and bust areas and Narrow necklines will accentuate the slender look, elongate your silhouette and narrow the shoulders. Inverted triangles are already top heavy so the idea is to reduce the width appearance of the shoulders to look more balanced. If you choose to embrace the width of your shoulders, you can compensate by adding volume around your hips.
The second group is the depth. You can choose between high and low necklines. High will hide your chest and low will elongate your body and break the chest. As an inverted triangle, if you opt for high necklines, don’t forget to define the waist. Low necklines will helps draw the attention away from your shoulders so it’s a good option for inverted triangles.
The last group, is the shape. You can either choose round necklines or sharp ones. Round necklines will create curves and won’t draw much attention and sharp shapes will make you look more squared and edgy. As an inverted triangle, you want to create curves with rounder shapes, as rectangular or straight necklines will make you look more squared.
The theory says that inverted triangle body shapes want to hide the shoulder and bust areas, which means that low and narrow necklines will look best on them. With your body shape I would also stay away from embellishments around the neck like big collars, lace trims or ruffles as they will draw attention to the width of your shoulders.
The next thing on the list are sleeves, which can also have a big impact on your body shape. Here we’ll talk about 3 types of sleeves: long, short and straps.
Once you’ve defined the length of the sleeve, you can add volume in different ways:
The inverted triangle body shape wants a sleeve that adds interest and volume hips while keeping the shoulders simple. This means avoiding any type of puff at the top of your sleeve and adding volume at the bottom. If you opt for a short sleeve, keep it fitted.
If on the other hand you want to wear straps, thin straps will elongate your shoulders and wide straps will do the opposite. The wide option is a good one for the inverted triangle body shape.
There’s other ways of adding volume and these are embellishments. You can add them to both the shoulders or the wrists and they can be things like
As an inverted triangle wrist embellishments are your best option if you’re looking for balance.
Another part of the top is the length. If you play with the length of the top and the waistband of the bottom, you will be able to change the illusion of your body proportions.
Let’s look at how the length can influence your proportions and shape:
You always have to combine the length with the other characteristics, a bit like what we did with the sleeves.
I’ve shown you some of the necklines and sleeves out there, but don’t forget there’s A LOT more to choose from. Take a look at the image below and remember to always draw your design before making any decisions to see how the volume will be distributed.
