For a long time, getting dressed has involved a little bit of negotiation with myself.
Not necessarily about whether I liked an outfit, but about whether I felt comfortable being seen in it.
I have a larger chest and what is generally described as an apple-shaped body, with more fullness around my upper body and middle. And somewhere along the way, I started making clothing choices around that.
I would think about whether something was too fitted, whether a neckline was too low, whether tucking a top in would draw too much attention, or whether a lighter colour would make me look bigger.
Eventually, I realised that I wasn't really dressing my body.
I was dressing around it.
Learning to stop hiding
This is something I have never really talked about on the blog before.
I have spent quite a lot of time hiding my upper body. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but because I had learned that certain clothes could attract attention in ways that made me uncomfortable.
There is a strange amount of calculation that can go into getting dressed when you have a larger chest.
A perfectly ordinary outfit can suddenly feel like something you need to explain.
A fitted top can feel like a statement when you didn't intend to make one. A tucked-in shirt can make you second-guess yourself. Even wearing something in a lighter colour can make you wonder whether you are drawing attention to the parts of your body you have spent years trying to make less noticeable.
And I think that is where a lot of my insecurity around dressing an apple-shaped body came from.
Not necessarily from my body itself, but from constantly thinking about how it would be perceived.
I don't think I want to dress that way anymore.
It is not really about showing more
I want to make one thing clear.
This isn't about suddenly deciding that I need to wear revealing clothes or that covering up is somehow wrong.
I still love oversized shirts.
I still like clothes that feel comfortable and easy.
There are days when I want to wear something loose and don't want to think about my body at all.
The difference is that I want those choices to come from what I like, rather than from the feeling that I need to hide.
I want to be able to wear something fitted because I like the silhouette.
I want to tuck a top into a skirt because I like the proportions.
I want to wear yellow because I like yellow.
And if something shows a little more of my shape than I am used to, perhaps that doesn't have to be a problem.
This outfit was a small step in that direction
This outfit felt like a good example of that.
The T-shirt is a fairly thin viscose fabric, so it moves with the body rather than sitting completely away from it. It can look relatively loose when I am standing still and then become more fitted as I move.
And it is yellow.
Which, as someone who has spent a considerable amount of time trying not to draw attention to my upper body, isn't exactly the most obvious choice.
But I really like yellow.
And I had this skirt that I had thrifted, and the two pieces looked good together.
So I wore them.
That sounds very simple, but it felt like a small shift in how I was thinking about clothes.
Why I had been avoiding skirts
I have always loved wearing skirts.
But I had started avoiding them, particularly with tucked-in tops.
Tucking a top in naturally changes the proportions of an outfit. It can bring attention towards the upper half of the body, and that was something I had become very conscious of.
So I stopped doing it.
Not because I didn't like the outfits.
Because I didn't like what I thought the outfits might draw attention to.
And that distinction is quite important.
Sometimes the things we stop wearing aren't actually things we dislike.
They are things we have decided we are not supposed to wear.
I'm trying to figure out the difference.
Dressing an apple-shaped body is not about hiding the middle
Most of the advice I have come across about dressing an apple-shaped body seems to begin with making the middle look smaller.
Wear this.
Avoid that.
Hide your tummy.
Create a waist.
Don't wear anything too clingy.
And while there is nothing wrong with using clothes to create a particular proportion if that is what you enjoy, I don't want my entire wardrobe to become an exercise in making one part of my body disappear.
For me, the more useful question is becoming:
What makes this outfit feel balanced and like me?
That might mean a V-neck or an open neckline on one day. It might mean a longer layer creating a vertical line on another. Sometimes it might simply mean choosing a fabric that skims rather than clings.
And sometimes it might mean ignoring all of that and wearing the thing I like anyway.
There are styling techniques that can make dressing an apple-shaped body easier. But I would rather think of them as tools than rules.
A few things I am learning about dressing my shape
Look at the whole outfit
I used to focus very heavily on my stomach or chest when deciding whether something looked good.
Now I am trying to look at the entire outfit instead.
The length of the top, the shape of the skirt, where the hem falls, the shoes, the bag, and even the amount of skin showing all change how an outfit reads.
Sometimes changing one of those things is enough to make an outfit feel more balanced.
Don't underestimate necklines
With a larger chest, necklines can change an outfit quite dramatically.
I tend to find that open necklines give the outfit a little more breathing room, rather than adding more fabric around an already fuller area.
But again, this isn't a rule about what an apple-shaped body should wear.
If I love a high neck, I want to be able to wear that too.
Tucking is not the enemy
This one has taken me a while to figure out.
I used to think that tucking a top in automatically made my upper body look bigger.
Sometimes it does change the emphasis of an outfit. But that doesn't necessarily mean the outfit looks bad.
It just looks different.
A tucked-in top with a skirt can create a very different silhouette from a loose top over trousers. Sometimes I prefer one. Sometimes I prefer the other.
I am trying to let that be enough.
Fabric matters
I have also started paying more attention to how fabric behaves rather than simply whether something is fitted or loose.
A soft fabric that skims the body can feel very different from something stiff or clingy, even when the two garments have a similar shape.
This has been particularly useful when shopping for tops.
I don't necessarily need everything to be oversized.
I just need it to move well.
I think this is the part I am still figuring out
I don't suddenly feel completely confident about my body.
That would probably be a rather unrealistic ending.
There are still outfits I put on and immediately start questioning.
There are still days when I change because I don't feel comfortable.
And I think that is okay.
Personal style doesn't have to be the point at which all your insecurities disappear.
Sometimes it is simply the process of learning which ones you want to listen to.
For me, I think I am slowly moving from asking:
"How can I hide this?"
to:
"How do I want to dress today?"
That feels like a much more interesting question.
And perhaps that is what dressing an apple-shaped body will become for me.
Not a list of things I am allowed to wear.
Not a list of things I need to avoid.
Just figuring out how to dress the body I have, in a way that still feels like me.
Love,
Priyanjana
What I am wearing
T-shirt: Zara
Skirt: Thrifted from an Instagram store
Shoes: Bought from a street vendor and repaired
Tote bag: Gaston Luga
I am excited to be able to start writing about dressing my body type, let me know what you want to learn, and I will try it out and then post to help you out!!