Tuesday, August 3, 2010

How to make your legs look longer and leaner

I enjoyed watching today lots of videos from Shine, theThread, but what specifically hooked me is the video of style reporter Sarah Bernard with Shape Magazine Executive Style Director Jaqui Stafford. Jaqui shared five essential tips on how to elongate your legs.

Now that the summer is in full swing, every girl is spotted on light outfits and exposing lots of flesh. Summer is the season to make your legs look their best. However, if you're a girl not blessed with natural long legs, the following tips from Jacqui would help you fake those long legs that you so wish you had.

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Get the right hemline.
For most women, the perfect hemline is just on the knees for both skirts and dresses. This is because the eyes of the beholder look for that narrow pattern where the hem meets the legs. The knee is the thinnest point. By contrast, if you hem a skirt at mid-calf, your legs will appear heavier.

This first tip urged Sarah to ask, "What about mini dresses?" Well, Jacqui said that it's okay to wear mini dresses as long as you pair it with some skin tone color [if I got it right] or specifically a monochromatic look because this is what makes the legs look long.

hem pants 1b diagram
Pants length
Hem pants should be ½ inch off the ground. If you keep your pants as long as possible, you create a thin line. You should as well wear high heels. The heels are hidden by the pants and this a very effortless way to fake long legs.

What about capris? You might ask. Jacqui says avoid them, at all cost!

Manolo D'Orsay Shoes

Wear Nude D'Orsay cut shoes.
I never knew that nude shoes, especially D'Orsay shoes, do work best in making your legs look longer and leaner. The reason mainly is that they visually continue the line of your leg thus trick the eye into thinking that your legs are longer than they are.

ankle strap
NO to ankle straps, please ...
Now this is very debatable. Jacqui holds that ankle straps make your legs look shorter. I loved it when Sarah asked "What about gladiator shoes?" Yeah, right. What about them? Aren't these shoes the trend of this season? "This is all about style temptation!" Jaqui exclaimed. "But okay, if you really wanna wear gladiator shoes, make sure you wear them with jeans."

This gladiator predicament actually left me in deep thoughts. What if I don't want to wear my gladiators with jeans? Can I wear them with mini dress? If I wear a mini, I expose more length. And what about short shorts? Can I get away with them and gladiators and still have long legs? I lean more into this, you know?

tanner
Create an illusion that you have long and lean legs
How do you do it? Make up and tanner! It's not about visiting to tanning saloon or heading quick to the nearby beach and spread some blankets for a whole day tanning session with the sun. Nope. It's about strategic way of applying shimmering body lotions, make up and tanner and especially just on the front of your legs, the shin part, because that create reflecting lights that make the legs look longer and leaner. If you're kind of confused how it works, just think of how you use make up - dark shades - to fake a pointed nose. ;)

But you know what's the down side of this strategy? We're talking about summer, right? That means heat and sun. If you walk down the streets of New York for a day out with your girl friends and with tanner and make up on your legs, maybe it's okay. But if you're in Asia, considering how hot it is, like seriously? You might think twice if you know how hotter and stickier that would make you. But if it's all about getting long legs? Well then ...

To see the video, click here.