If you’re sick of all your clothes and don’t like how they look on you, maybe it’s because you don’t know How to Dress your Rectangle Body Shape. Before we start, I want to make something very clear: There are no right or wrong answers. It’s a matter of what shape you are looking for.
I will share with you what silhouette is most flattering for every shape based on the “standards” and show you the different options so you can make your own decisions. Look at the drawings and decide for yourself which style you want to pick, we don’t have to follow the standards!
You are a rectangle if the width of your shoulders is very similar to the hips. You have very little to no shaping around the waist and thus giving the illusion of a rectangle. This body shape can change into other shapes, like an hourglass if you loose weight or an inverted triangle if you gain shoulder muscles.
The key to dressing the Rectangle Body Shape, is balancing this shape and getting the illusion of an hourglass.
Remember that body proportions are also an important factor to look balanced.
Bottoms can be Trousers and Skirts. They are two different parts but they can be divided in the same way.
The waistband can do two things. One, accentuate your waist by signalling our eyes to look at it, and two, change your body proportions. There’s 3 main waistlines: the high waisted, the mid-rise and the low waisted.
The theory says that as a rectangle, you should lean towards low to mid-rise waistlines. In my opinion, the waistband has more to do with body proportions and comfort than with body shape:
I have done some research on how wide the waistband should be, or what types of belts are better for every body shape but it has more to do with the outfit than the body shape.
The next design change we can apply to our trousers is modifying the length. The length will have two purposes, on one side it’s going to be seasonal (in summer we wear shorts) and on the other side it can change the body proportions. The image below shows you the “typical” lengths but remember you can make your bottoms as long or short as you want.
In order to change your body proportions, you can play around with the waistbands and the lengths. The theory says that shortening your bottoms will make your legs appear shorter and lengthening them will make them appear longer.
It sounds very obvious, but the important thing is to balance your own proportions. For example, in my case I have a short torso, so if I wanted to wear high waisted pants, that would make my torso even shorter. If I want to balance that out, I could make the trousers shorter and then my legs would also look shorter, which would make me look proportionate.
The main purpose of the leg shapes is to change your body proportions by adding or removing volume to your lower body. I will explain the theory based on the trousers but the same applies skirts.
There’s 6 main leg-lines: the slim, the tapered, the straight, the boot cut, the bell bottoms and finally the wide legs.
As a rectangle, we have to add volume to the lower part of our body and give the illusion that our waistline is smaller than it actually is. This means that the best leg-lines for this body shape are the boot cut, the bell bottoms, and the wide legs. Be careful with the amount of volume you add as it has to be balanced with the top part of your body. Rectangle shapes should also stay away from straight silhouettes because they can make them too boxy.
If I look at this picture, I actually disagree with the theory. I personally dislike the boot cut look and love the straight trousers, so remember to decide which one you like the most!
This next chapter is not a part of the trousers or skirts but something we can add to our design to draw attention to certain areas. The details will indirectly have an effect on our body proportions
There’s a bunch of design details but here’s a few of them:
As we already discussed, the rectangle body shape needs to add volume to different areas, so any details around the hips/feet will work for this shape. It is better if you avoid details around your waist. If you look at the picture, where do your eyes go? To the wide legs with pockets or to the ones without? Or to the trousers with pleats or without? Somehow these details change the perception of our body shape.
The final thing we can do is changing the fabric and colours. These two things can be used to balance the rest of the characteristics.
Light weight fabrics will help soften your figure and create curves, so they are great for rectangle body shapes.
On the other hand, colours will help draw more or less attention to the lower body. Light colours make you look more voluminous and darker colours make the appear slimmer. But don’t take my word for it, look at it for yourself!
In general, we use fabrics and colours to balance the look. If you’re adding a lot of volume, then opt for darker colour. If on the other hand you chose a slimmer leg-line, I would go for lighter colours. Same for the fabric. If you’re choosing a straight silhouette, go for softer fabrics.
Now that you have all the information about bottoms, take a look at all the Trousers and Skirts combinations out there! This is just a little overview but remember you can create any combination you want.
When learning how to dress the rectangle 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 shape. 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. If you want to wear narrow necklines, don’t forget to define the waist.
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 a rectangle, if you opt for high necklines, don’t forget to define the waist.
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 a rectangle, you want to create curves with rounder shapes as rectangular or straight necklines will make you look more squared.
The theory says that rectangle body shapes want to lengthen the shoulder and bust areas and low and wide necklines will look best on them. You can also create that effect by adding embellishments around the neck like big collars, lace trims or ruffles.
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 rectangle body shape wants a sleeve that adds interest and volume to the shoulders and hips while defining the waist. This means any type of flare or puff will work well for this body type. the theory says you should avoid tight sleeves as they will make you look shapeless.
If on the other hand you want to wear straps, thin straps will elongate your shoulders and wide straps will do the opposite. The thin option is a good one for the rectangle 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
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.
