Are you looking for the Perfect Trousers for your Rectangle Body Shape? In this article I will show you an overview of what the best trouser are for your rectangular body shape. Before we start, I want to make something very clear: There are no right or wrongs. 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!
Rectangle Body shape
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 finding the Perfect Trousers for your Rectangle Body Shape, is balancing this shape and getting the illusion of an hourglass. Your trousers should do the following:
- Draw attention to the waist and add definition
- Add volume to the lower part of your body but make sure it’s balanced by the top
Remember that the body proportions are also an important factor to look balanced.
Trousers Anatomy
Let’s dive into what features we can change when we make pants. There’s 6 main characteristics that combined can create a LOT of different designs:
- Foundation: The foundations are not related to your body shape but to the level of comfort.
- Waistline: This part of the trousers will be defined by your body shape, body proportions and level of comfort.
- Length: The length is mostly a seasonal choice but it will have an influence on your body proportions
- Leg-lines: The silhouette of the trousers will play the biggest role to hide or accentuate your body shape
- Details: Choosing the right details can draw attention to certain parts of your body and add to your body shape
- Fabrics and colours: These two things can soften your shape and bring/hide the attention to the lower body
Now that we know the parts of the trousers that will help define your body shape, let’s look into them individually.
Foundations
The foundations are the base of every pants pattern. They define how much ease there is around the crotch area and the upper thighs, and how comfortable the trousers are. There are 4 trousers foundations: the Culottes, the Trousers, the Slacks and the Jeans. The Culottes have the most amount of ease and the Jeans the least.
There is one other foundation I haven’t talked about and it’s the elastic foundation. This pattern is for elastic fabrics and fits tight around your body. It’s mostly used for sportswear and activewear.
The foundations have a minimum effect on your body shape so I will not go too much into detail about it in this article. To learn more about the foundations and how to draft each of them, click here
Waistbands
The waistband can do two things. One, accentuate your waist by signalling our eyes to look at it, and two, it can 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:
- High waisted trousers: This waistline sits under your bust. It will elongate your figure and shorten your torso. You can play around with the length of the trousers if you look too unbalanced
- Mid-rise trousers: Sits on your natural waistline which is normally below your ribcage. If you have balanced proportions, this is the best option.
- Low waisted trousers: It sits around 5cm below your natural waistline but you can choose how low. This option will elongate your torso and shorten your legs.
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.
Leg-lines
The main purpose of the leg-line is to change your body proportions by adding or removing volume to your lower body. This specific part will be very important to finding the Perfect Trousers for your Rectangle Body Shape.
There’s 6 main leg-lines: the slim, the tapered, the straight, the boot cut, the bell bottoms and finally the wide legs.
- Slim: The leg-line follows the silhouette of your legs
- Tapered: It’s wide at the hips and tight at the ankle
- Straight: Falls down from your hips or your knees
- Boot cut: Flares from below your knee
- Bell bottoms: Flares from above or at your knees
- Wide legs: Flare from your waistband
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!
Length
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 on the left is to illustrate the main trousers length but as always, you can make them as long or short as you want. If you want to change your body proportions do the following:
- If you shorten your trousers, it will shorten your legs appearance
- If you lengthen them, it will make them longer
It sounds very obvious, but the important thing here is to balance your own proportions. For example, in my case I have a short torso, so if I wanted to make high waisted pants, that would make my torso even shorter. If I want to balance that out, I could make them shorter and then my legs would also look shorter, which would make me look proportionate.
You can play around with volume and length and see what combinations are your favourite!
Details
This next chapter is not a part of the trousers 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: pockets, pleats, turn ups, and distress
As we already discussed, the rectangle body shape needs to add volume to different areas, so any detail will work for this shape. If you look at the picture, where do your eyes go? To the wide legs without pockets or with? Or to the trousers with pleats or without? Somehow these details change the perception of our body shape.
Fabric and Colours
The final thing we can do when choosing trousers is changing the fabric and the colour. These two things will have an effect on your body shape by balancing the look.
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. Light colours make you look more voluminous and darker colours make the look slimmer. But don’t take my word for it, look at it for yourself! When you look at this picture, where do your eyes go first?
In general, we use fabrics and colours to balance the look. If you’re adding a lot of volume, then opt for darker look. 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.
If you look at this picture, where do your eyes go first? For me they go to the white trousers, then the print and finally the black. They always say that black makes you slimmer, and in this picture you can see this illusion.
Choose your Trousers
Now that you have all the information to choose the perfect trousers for your body shape, it’s time to decide! Here you have a matrix with all the trousers with an official name, but remember you can create any combination you want.
On the horizontal line you have the leg-lines and the vertical line you have the foundations. Remember that if you play around with fabrics, colours, waistlines, lengths and details, you can wear ANY trousers you want! So, now you are ready to find the Perfect Trousers for your Rectangle Body Shape, which ones are your favourites?