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May 2020 archive

Kibbe's Metamorphosis | 0 comment

Height in Kibbe: Why Tall People Can’t Be in Short Image Identities

Disclaimer: This information is not something I have learned from David Kibbe, and only represents what I think. Please join Strictly Kibbe if you would like help on your journey with Kibbe.

In my last post, I talked about how you can’t really add anything to length except width or curves, and that’s why D, SD, and FN are the only possible options for women who are tall. But this doesn’t really seem to be a sufficient explanation for why literal height is always length and thus yang, whereas literal shortness isn’t always yin. While I could repeat what David says, it was hard to get people on board if they felt that they had a short line, despite being tall.

I think I have come up with a way to explain it that makes sense. Let’s talk short lines. The Romantics (Romantic and Theatrical) and the Gamines (Soft and Flamboyant) have “yin size,” or a short body line. The Romantics have one due to their round shape, their curves. Think of yin as a circle, and yang as a line, either standing straight up (sharp yang) or on its site (blunt/strong yang).

Gamines, on the other, have a broken line. I can see this easily in my body. It is composed of short lines. My body line is basically in fits and starts, and it’s something I mirror in my clothing.

Jean Seberg, 5’3″ Kibbe Gamine (hasn’t been moved to F or S yet!)

Now, when you add length to either a broken line or a rounded line, it loses that quality. With length, I would lose that “broken” quality to my line. All of the individual lines in my body would be longer. A rounded shape lengthens and the curvature is less dramatic compared to the length of the body.

But you can have someone who is shorter, and yet doesn’t have a broken line visually.

SJP in 1991, a 5’3″ FN

This seems fairly common when you’re just on the lower end of moderate (5’3″ or so), and less so when you get very short. But again, a long line on a short woman is just possible in the way a short line on a tall woman isn’t.

I hope this explains why there isn’t necessarily a lower limit for the tall Image IDs, but there is an upper one for shorter Image IDs.

Kibbe's Metamorphosis | 16 Comments

Height in Kibbe: About Dramatic, Soft Dramatic, and Flamboyant Natural

Before I start, I’d just like to say that while I usually try to stick to things I can find direct citations for when it comes to Kibbe, this is something that I’ve seen come up so frequently that I’d like to address it. Please do not ask me what you’d be with your vertical and outline combination; this is based on what I’ve been able to learn from David but is not authorized by him in any way. Please join Strictly Kibbe if you would like help on your journey with Kibbe.

With that, something I have been seeing a lot lately is people saying that D, SD, and FN are broader Image IDs, and tall women are going to find that their Image IDs are less to specific to them than to me at 5’4″, for example. It’s true that my height doesn’t rule out anything for me, but it doesn’t mean that every Image ID is open to me, either. I believe that D, SD, and FN don’t cater to wider variety of women than the rest, except for the fact that they cover a wider range of literal heights.

Let’s think about what goes into the yin/yang balance of different Image IDs. Putting flesh aside, we can divide them into two fundamental elements:

Your vertical can be:

  • Short
  • Moderate
  • Long

Your outline can be:

  • Curvy
  • Straight (nothing really in your outline to accommodate)
  • Wide (has width somewhere from the ribcage through the shoulders)

While there are subtler nuances, this is basically what you’re dealing with when it comes to the physical reality of your body. When it comes to the tall Image IDs, I often hear people say that they are so much more diverse in terms of appearance because they are the only ones open to tall women (over, I would estimate, 5’8″). But I would counter with this: tell me what is missing for these women, because I really can’t see it. If you are tall, and don’t have width or curves, you’d be D. If you’re tall, and have curves and maybe width, you’d be SD. If you’re tall and accommodate just width in your outline, you’d be FN. The other variations come from having short or moderate vertical. You have literal, physical length. You’re not going to be moderate/symmetrical/balanced, because the length rules out that symmetry. You’re not going to have a combination of opposites, because your length is too significant for that balance. You’re not going to be all curves with no vertical, because you have that vertical.

I don’t believe that tall women get the short end of the stick, and I’ve never seen anyone put forth a convincing argument for this. All the Image IDs have a broader range of women than Hollywood might make it seem, because generally to find success in Hollywood, you have to adhere to a certain beauty standard. In real life, you’re able to see the true range of each Image ID. Each Image ID includes a wide range of women who share particular features in their physicality, but every individual in an Image ID is unique. If you are a tall woman, you just happen to have one major piece of the puzzle solved for you, which is your vertical. So yes, ultimately, you can narrow down your exploration to these three, but it doesn’t mean that your actual options are narrower than anyone else’s, because we are all limited to one ID based on the constraints of our physical selves.