Archive of ‘Style Systems’ category

Kibbe Style Stereotypes

If you don’t have the physical copy of Metamorphosis and haven’t ever seen the pictures from the book, look at the image below. What type do you think this is?
photo (50)
A monochromatic look? No line break? Maybe it’s some kind of classic, or even a dramatic.

Nope. It’s the Soft Gamine makeover from the book. You may be asking, “But where is the line break? Where are the cute details and the Peter Pan collar?” It doesn’t fit in with the popular image of Soft Gamine at all. But it has crisp details (the shoulders), interesting accessories (big red bead necklace, little gloves), and there is, in fact, a line break. It does not obey the popular rule for short women that you should have your hosiery and your shoe be the same color to create the illusion of a longer leg.

Kibbe himself, according to people who have seen him in person, seems to go back and forth on how useful the book is. Some he tells to ignore the book, some he tells to read it. But while the recommendations can be outdated (I don’t buy sweaters with shoulder pads!), I still find that the recommendations are very useful. It helps you understand the parameters of your type that you can do then use to create your own unique style.

What I would definitely avoid doing, and I think I have mentioned this before, is relying on Pinterest and Polyvore to get an idea of the way your type should use their lines. Even with my own Pinterest, I’m not entirely satisfied with how I represent the types, because I feel like I know my own type the best and the rest I usually just repin from other people. We end up with stereotypes like Soft Gamine=Ingenue and that Soft Natural=Boho. People who come back from Kibbe with these types assigned to them do not end up dressed how the type is generally represented at all.

I think that we tend to look at the types with a point of view that is too narrow. While there is debate in the Kibbe community right now about whether the book has any use at all, I think it’s still the best resource for understanding your type and the lines that it requires. Anybody else’s interpretation should only be considered once you have gotten to know your type well, and when you know what works or what doesn’t.

Determining Your Kibbe Type: Listen to Yourself

When you first discover Kibbe and start looking at blogs, communities, forums, etc., inevitably you’ll begin asking for feedback on what other people think you are. This can sometimes be helpful, but other times it can set you back farther on your Kibbe journey than you were when you started. The only person who I would 100% trust when it comes to my Kibbe type is Kibbe. While I know many people who have been very satisfied with their analyses from people who offer their own services based on Kibbe, they are still offering their own vision of what Kibbe says.

This fact goes double for random people in communities. No matter how much of an expert someone seems to be presenting themselves as, and no matter how sure they sound of how they see Kibbe, don’t forget to listen to what you think and what you know about yourself. This would apply even to me, if you happen to see me around on message boards or if you ask for my advice in the comments. Like anyone else, I’m always learning new things and coming across new discoveries in this style analysis business, and I don’t claim to be an expert, just someone who loves discussing this subject. This especially goes for things I wrote early in this blog. If you read My Kibbe Journey, I went from thinking I was a Soft Dramatic (correctly recognizing the mix of yin and yang in my features), to Soft Natural (thinking that I was a youthful looking SN, recognizing that I had gamine youthfulness but was too yang for Soft Gamine), to finally Flamboyant Gamine, where I remain today. But since I discovered Kibbe, which was only around April (!) of this year, I have had many a world-shaking revelation.

And there have also been instances where someone else’s vision of Kibbe has distorted what I knew from the beginning, which is that Flamboyant Gamine is where I belong. Others’ doubts and distortions clouded my instinct. How did I know I was Flamboyant Gamine? Looking at the groups of celebrity examples, I knew that the Gamines and Flamboyant Gamines were where my “people” were. While I do distrust Pinterest and Polyvore and recommend staying away until you know the difference between Kibbe’s recommendations and a type’s stereotype, everything on a Flamboyant Gamine board made me go “I WANT THAT.” I knew from experience that these were the clothes that worked for me. And for every style I tried outside of FG, I just wanted to add angles and asymmetry to it. Lastly, and most importantly, if you put my face in the Flamboyant Gamine face collage, it just makes sense there.

Basically, what I want to say is that there are two important sources of information when trying to determine your Kibbe type: things that come straight from the horse’s mouth (the information Kibbe provided in the book, although there are some errors–we just learned that Natalie Wood was supposed to be in the Soft Gamine section!–and things he has said to people during their sessions with him) and you. Use your own eyes to see what people verified by Kibbe have in common, and try to discern patterns. Listen to your own inner voice and how you feel in different clothes, and try to see yourself objectively, although it’s very difficult. It is still fine to ask for advice and to seek out information (or an analysis!) from non-Kibbe stylists whose work is based off of his system or people in communities and on message boards, but ultimately, your happiness with your Image Identity is what matters, not someone else’s opinion. Listen to Emerson and “trust thyself.”

Below are images from my own Pinterest that I have connected with along my Flamboyant Gamine journey. I encourage you to look for places where you see yourself, too.

Do You Really Need a Style Analysis?

***Update, 5/21/15: Gwen is a tough one! After examining pictures of her body, I have decided that she is actually FN. Her shoulders are very broad, and her rib cage is wider than her hips. The celebrity I found with the most similar body shape to Gwen’s is Cameron Diaz, who is pretty much universally regarded as FN.***

Note: I have discussed Gwen Stefani with some real-life TRs, who feel that her body is far too yang. So I have settled on her being a Soft Dramatic, with a yin face and a yang body. I still definitely do not think she is FG!

Do I need a style analysis? This is a question I’ve been turning over lately in my mind. While I can’t afford Kibbe, there are two other people that I know of who offer a Kibbe-based service and have generally good reviews: Rachel of Best Dressed and Sarah of Guiding Lines both offer reasonably priced services.

I have, however, yet to get myself analyzed. Truth be told, I’m scared. I don’t want to be told what I don’t want to hear. I don’t feel like I fit the typical body type we see in FG, and I score in C/G range on the test. I find, however, that Kibbe’s recommendations work really well for me, I feel good in FG clothes, and I ruled out other possibilities like SN because I need structure. I have blathered on about how I landed on FG in depth.

So I guess what I’m wondering is, if you feel good in the type you’ve selected, do you really need to get an official analysis? Maybe someone would put me in SG because of my body shape. Maybe someone else would make me a small SD. But at the end of the day, FG is where I feel the best and where I feel myself. I think of Gwen Stefani, who you’ll sometimes find on Flamboyant Gamine Pinterest boards. Gwen, though, has always seemed like an outlier to me in FG. Her face is not FG at all. Then I remembered that she played Jean Harlow in The Aviator.


(Sources: 1, 2)

She looks fine in FG. She is STUNNING in TR, with a face that would absolutely not be out of face in glamorous 1930s Hollywood. I think she’s always known this, because even when she was wearing Dickies, she still did a very glam makeup look. Now, I do think that Gwen’s beauty is truly revealed in in her TR/Jean Harlow look. But she has made an image for herself as a cool dresser, not a glam one. So I’m divided on whether a TR Metamorphosis would be the best thing for her. But looking at her in the Jean Harlow pictures, I see her, not the clothes.

As for myself, what if I went to see Kibbe and he made me an SC, my nightmare type? (No offense to any SCs out there; it’s great on you, but not for me.) The ladylike image of SC is so far removed from everything I am. Would I stop dressing FG if an analyst told me I wasn’t? To be honest, probably not.

Have you ever been analyzed? Were you pleased by the results? Do you think Gwen should dress in bias cut silk gowns all the time?

Defining Yourself By Your Don’ts

You may well be able to find something from each Kibbe type that you could potentially wear. And when two types both seem like pretty strong contenders, it may seem like you’ll never nail it down. But one thing I’ve found that can help is defining yourself by your “Don’ts”: what doesn’t work for you, or what key part of the recommendations you can wear, but aren’t absolutely necessary. For instance, confusion between Soft Dramatic and Theatrical Romantic seems to be common: are you Dramatic with a Romantic undercurrent, or are you Romantic with a Dramatic undercurrent? Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell. But if you realize, like some people I’ve come across in the Kibbe world have, that while waist definition looks good on you, you don’t actually need it, then you can probably put yourself in Soft Dramatic.

This should not be confused with “Every recommendation for your type should look good on you.” You should be able to follow your recommendations painlessly and effortlessly, and maybe just skip one or two things. Like I don’t do drop waists, for example, although I might try them on if I lose some weight. But following your recommendations should cut your shopping time in half at the very minimum, and if you’re struggling, you’re probably in the wrong type altogether.

Sometimes, especially if you’re in Classic, Natural, or Gamine, it can be hard to tell which side of the yin/yang balance within your type you fall on. If you’re deciding between Flamboyant Gamine and Soft Gamine, for example, and you seem close to plain old Gamine, you can ask yourself if you do better with rounded shapes or sharp, angled shapes. Do you need a narrow silhouette that then has angles placed on top, or do you do well with a narrow silhouette that is also rounded?

Sometimes there’s a lot of “Cans” in a potential type… but it may the “Don’ts” that reveal our Image Identity.

Bringing Back Natural: The Conclusion

One thing that is inevitable with all of these systems is that you’ll realize something that changes your perception of a certain system. This has happened to me several times with Kibbe: when I realized that face was more important than I previously thought, when I realized that I could be a Flamboyant Gamine even if I’m not shaped like Twiggy, etc.

Since I wrote my last post, I’ve been thinking about the issue of what Natural or blunt/soft yang really is. I think I may have figured it out.

Some people view the different Kibbe base types as essences, and you’re either the yin or yang version of this essence. I don’t think this is really the proper way to look at Kibbe. Perhaps the confusion comes from systems like Kitchener, who views people as being composed of percentages of essences.

In Kibbe, however, your essence is your type. The base types are more benchmarks for certain ways that yin and yang can fit together. After looking at the book some more, I realized that Natural is a representation of mostly yang with yin added to soften the edges a bit.

yinyangbalance

This chart is from the book. For the sake of argument, let’s say that Natural is 75% yang/25% yin. This means that natural features, like broad shoulders, can be seen as having this much yang and yin. The yin widens the features. So a wide natural nose is a like a Dramatic nose with the width that comes from yin. If we look at its opposite, Moderate Yin (D on the Kibbe quiz), which for some reason Kibbe didn’t give its own base type, it’s as if Romantic yin has been stretched out a bit and made sleeker.

So I have been wrong in the past when I have said that N blunt yang is another ingredient in Kibbe’s system. There are still just two influences: yin and yang. When we say that a Flamboyant Gamine can have blunt N yang, it means that they can have features that show this 75% yang/25% yin balance. While the pure yin influence shows in size, and the mix of D and R can be seen in their Gamine facial features, this N influence can also cause Flamboyant Gamines to be stockier, for instance, than our Dramatic counterparts.

I’m still not entirely sure why he got rid of the pure Natural type, though. I suppose that you’ll still have a more yang or a more yin impression of someone, and you’re just as unlikely to have everything about you be a perfect 75/25 mix as you are a perfect 50/50 mix.

Bringing Back Natural

Obviously, I spend a lot of time thinking about and overanalyzing Kibbe. One of the things that has thrown me for a loop as of late is the fact that Kibbe has gotten rid of the Natural category. Now, getting rid of Classic and Gamine I understand. Very few people will be either a perfect blend of the two or a perfect contrast of the two. Nearly everyone will fall a tiny bit on the side of one or the other. But Natural is different. Natural is only one element, blunt yang, which you can also sometimes find in Dramatic Classic and Flamboyant Gamine.

The other pure types, Dramatic and Romantic, can still be found in Kibbe. Yes, Dramatics are rare, but he didn’t get rid of them completely. So why did he get rid of the pure version of the other element in the system?

I don’t have much to say about this. I’m just confused right now.

So is OG Natural Ingrid Berman.

ibermansad
(Source)

What’s More Important: Style or Color?

In an ideal world, of course we’d only buy clothes that are in both our season and our Kibbe type. Unfortunately, fashion hasn’t yet aligned its manufacturing decisions along Kibbe and Sci\ART lines, and for many combinations, finding clothes in both your season AND type can feel like a quest for the Holy Grail. I’m planning on finally getting draped soon, and I fear that I’ll end up as a Soft Autumn, which is one of the seasons that is practically impossible to find FG clothes for.

So what do you do? You have to get dressed every day, after all. Obviously, if you’re looking for an investment piece, it’s wise to wait until you DO find things that are in both your season and your type. Otherwise, it just wouldn’t be a wise investment. But what do you do in the meantime? You still have to wear clothes seven days a week, and you have to change it up somewhat or people will start to look at you funny.

I think the answer as to what is more important, and where you’re willing to compromise, varies. For me, I can’t compromise on type. Or if I do compromise, I have to add something to bring the outfit more or less into FlamGam land, like throw a crop top with some geometrics over it or add a leather jacket. But even then, I feel like now that I know my Kibbe and am comfortable with its rules, I’m less inclined to fudge them a little, because I know it’s the FG things that I’m going to reach for every day.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t know my season yet, but I’m much more likely to break color rules. I’m pretty sure I’m not in a season that can wear black successfully, and yet trying to ban black from my wardrobe was a dismal failure. I feel like that the FG type is so strong, both in how it presents itself and its presence, that FGs are generally going to be less sensitive to the colors we wear, since we will overpower them. My instinct is that this is probably true for most types with some kind of D influence. Also, FG clothes at my price point are generally in the winter palettes, so sometimes that’s just all there is to choose from.

Naturals and Classics, I think, don’t have this problem, since from my observations (and I could be wrong about this–C and N types let me know in the comments), clothes in these types tend to be much more easy to find, and come in a wider variety of colors. So I would say that for these types, it’s probably not worth buying clothes if they’re not in your season, because you could probably go to the store next door and find something that is. I also think that SCs could potentially be very sensitive to wearing the wrong colors, since they are so well-balanced and are more delicate than DCs, so I think a wrong color choice could very jarring to their otherwise symmetrical and delicate ways.

How do you deal with this issue? Are you perfectly coordinated to your palette, or does your wardrobe contain a mishmash of seasons that perfectly correspond to Kibbe’s recommendations?

Why I Don’t Like Body Type Recommendations

Perhaps this is because the ones I’ve come across for my body type (hourglass with short legs, a “skittle” in Trinny and Susannah’s system) don’t work for me, but I don’t like clothing recommendations based solely on body type. While I think Kibbe does try to create balance and harmony within a type, he does not do what many of these systems try to do, which is to create curves where there is none and minimize curves when you do have them, and just generally try to make everyone the same.

I know that Trinny and Susannah based their careers on giving no-nonsense fashion advice doled out with a healthy helping of tough love, but if you read the text accompanying their recommendations, it’s very much based on what I’m talking about. Look at what they advise for my poor fellow Skittles:

skittleDM2510_468x529

(Source)

I think the woman looks decent in the outfit on the right, although I’d never wear it myself. The picture on the left, however… If that was how I had to dress on an everyday basis, I’d probably stop buying clothes altogether and give up completely. It took me a solid five minutes to figure out that it wasn’t a set of “before and after” outfit photos. Regardless, while only one of the outfits is truly terrible–I can’t imagine it looking good on ANYONE–neither of them would be suitable at all for a Flamboyant Gamine like me.

Which brings me to my next point. Sometimes people will say, “I have an hourglass [pear, apple, etc.] shape. What Kibbe am I?” While I think this can be a useful thing to examine if your figure is the most prominent thing about you, I don’t find it very useful for most people. There are so many other factors that go into a Kibbe type, and I don’t really think that body shape alone will rule out or determine a type. I’m a Flamboyant Gamine and an X. And look at H Charlize Theron belting like the Theatrical Romantic she is:

charlizebelt
(Source)

While I think sites like Imogen Lamport’s can be useful, for me, I don’t find them particularly helpful. I find it much more helpful to first of all follow my FG recs, and second, to just try on different clothes in order to understand what suits my body.

Do you follow the recommendations for your body shape? Do they conflict with your Kibbe, the way mine do?

Curvy Flamboyant Gamine: Physical Guidelines

Update, 6/24/15: Please read this post. I no longer believe in the idea of “curvy FG” as described here.

I expanded my last post for some Kibbe groups on Facebook, and I figured I should put what I added here as well.

So what does a curvy Flamboyant Gamine look like?

MAC Cosmetics Viva Glam Party

(Source)

In Metamorphosis, Kibbe says we can deviate from the guidelines, as long as these deviations don’t upset our yin/yang balance. We know that Kibbe has typed voluptuous hourglasses as Flamboyant Naturals when that is listed on the “NO” list for FNs, so why can’t it be the same for FGs? It all comes down to The Most Important Thing, or TMIT. For Gamines of either type, I think that TMIT is the face—not height, because there are Kibbe-confirmed FGs like Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy, who are above-average height, and not body type, because your eye is supposed to move around on a G and not focus on any one aspect of their physicality. Obviously if you’re six feet tall, etc., it may disrupt your yin/yang balance enough to move you out of gamine, but you get the picture.

So if your face is a mix of D and R, but D dominates, it may push you out of SG and into FG, even if your body is more SG. For me, I would say my face is 1/3 R and 2/3 D, which makes SG’s rounded shapes not work and made me want to add bold geometrics to any type I was trying on. I have noticed that FGs who are closer to 50/50 in terms of their facial D/R balance tend to have the brick-shaped, coltish, very yang body we think of as being classic FG. They also can go more toward classic G in their clothes, and wear things like cigarette pants with Breton striped tee. They don’t need as much opposition/drama in their clothes.

In a way, this is not much different from how SD works—SDs are either yang faces with yin flesh or vice versa. Kibbe doesn’t have a type for yang face/yin size/yin flesh. I think SD works in this case if your curves dominate and you project an SD type of sexiness. And I think FG works if the D in your face with some opposition of R dominates.

To sum it all up, you can be a curvy/soft Flamboyant Gamine IF the opposition of Dramatic and Romantic in your face leans heavily to the Dramatic side, AND if the curviness and softness of your body doesn’t dominate over your facial features.

Curvy Flamboyant Gamine

Update, 11/5/19: Please read this post. I no longer consider the ideas presented here to be valid.
Update, 4/26/20: I still see theses ideas pop up…

“Curvy Flamboyant Gamines” do not exist. FGs have straight body lines.

These posts remain on this blog for archival purposes only.

When I first realized that I was a Flamboyant Gamine, I thought it would be difficult for me to follow the recommendations because I am curvy, rather than shaped like Twiggy. If you are asked how I ended up an FG then, you can read my entire series on this topic, which was written as this discovery was being made, but basically, Kibbe does not have a category for yin in size/yang in face/yin in flesh, and I score as a “G” on the quiz. But the extra Dramatic in my face takes precedence over the extra Romantic in my body. I know this because I need bold geometrics, not the rounded shapes you find in SG.

So how do you do FG when you’re curvier than the average FG? What I have found is that it is not difficult at all. The narrow shapes and bodycon styles do enough to flatter curves, even if most of the example FGs are much straighter-looking than I am, for me to use the recommendations without having to make many concessions or alterations.

What doesn’t work for curvy FlamGams? The “blouson” style dress. I’m also not a fan of dropped waists in general. I love the flapper-dress look on other people, but I need more construction and for things to be tight.

(Sources: 1, 2)

I would also look at Gamine recommendations, but I think all FlamGams should, whether you have a yinnier face and a straighter body or a yangier face and a yinner body. The only thing I take from Gamine, though, is move the waist up to my natural waist, instead of a dropped waist. Despite my curvier figure, Gamine is actually still too delicate for me.

If you are still finding that FlamGam isn’t working that well for you, you may well be another type completely, and that’s okay. But in the meantime, I attempted to make my first-ever Polyvore to illustrate, using Kelly O., the patron saint of non-Twiggyesque FlamGams. I actually own the dress on the left, and it is gorgeous for a FlamGam who has a conservative event to go to.

curvyfg

(Set here)

One of the most interesting things about Flamboyant Gamine is that it is yin, sharp yang, and blunt yang. We have all of the elements of Kibbe’s system, and they are all in opposition with one another. A wide variety of Flamboyant Gamine bodies and faces is to be expected, so don’t worry if you feel like you don’t exactly look like the typical FG. The proof is in the recommendations.

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