I had some free time finally, so I wandered into what is (for me) the darkest corner of the internet… the place where people outside of the Strictly Kibbe world discuss Kibbe. And I found that, to my surprise, three weeks ago, Merriam Style decided to distance what she does from David.

On the one hand, I definitely applaud this move! Just by poking around the aforementioned dark corner, and seeing what people who come to our Facebook group from her work say, I know that what she teaches is very, very different from what he does–height not mattering to the point where the tallest of women can be put into the shortest of types, etc.

I can see that she gets it, to an extent, and this is partially what spurred her to no longer use his work the way she has been doing. David is a “highly intuitive” person. He has a gift of seeing people. And he can help you see yourself.

On the other hand, however, the post just made it even clearer for me that fundamentally, there is a disconnect between what David actually teaches, and what people who haven’t learned from David directly believe about this system.

From her post:

But going back to this difference between personality and body type: Even in one of my first videos on my channel that I’ve ever made, on the Soft Gamine, I say that Soft Gamines don’t have to be cute or fun. They can also be sexy or elegant or badass.

And herein lies the humongous problem. David would absolutely agree that SGs can be sexy, elegant, and badass. All Image IDs have their own ways of being these things.

SG Eartha Kitt, embodying these three characteristics.

Tell Bette to her face that she is limited to “cute”!

Anyone who spends time with David, virtually or otherwise, knows that he believes that we are all unique individuals who can be any way we want to be, and understanding our Image ID is just the way to be the most ourselves and to achieve our fullest potential, freeing us from what we think we have to be and giving ourselves permission and freedom to be how we are. I know that the advice he has given me as a presumptive FG is totally different from the advice he has given other presumptive FGs. He doesn’t give everyone the advice to wear the wild and edgy things he tells me to look for, for instance.

So when I see things like this, from the same blog post:

At that time, I didn’t realize the gravity of this ‘discovery’ so to speak, or just how fundamentally different this is from other approaches, and potentially even David’s approach.

…it frustrates me to no end. This is not a “discovery.” It’s not David’s approach at all to use the Image ID as a box, not only for someone’s style, but even worse, their personality. It’s something that many have promoted, but it has nothing to do with David’s work. And even if his system were so limited, going back to the book, the SG was not at all merely cute and innocent. SGs are “Spitfire Chic”! How people get “cute and innocent” out of “spitfire,” I have no idea. It is clear the lineage of the current crop of Kibbe “instructors,” on YouTube and elsewhere, can be traced not to David, but those who came before and briefly made some cash and got hits on their sites from taking David’s work and turning it into something fit for Pinterest and video compilations and discernible from photos or a video call, if someone has hundreds of dollars to spare.

So while I applaud Merriam Style for discontinuing the use of David’s lexicon in her work, the fundamental misunderstandings present in her “farewell to Kibbe” blog post show that really, she should not have been “teaching” his work in the first place.

I have gotten some comments, both here and on Facebook in the Kibbe groups I run, frequently rather rude, on why I am so, for lack of a better word, dismissive of all of the various analysts on YouTube and blogs who claim to be able to teach Kibbe to others, and charge for typings, and send out PDFs with various information, and so on. Generally, they point out that this or that person has helped them a lot with understanding themselves and their style, and the materials that I provide here and that David himself provides in groups and on his own blog are less clear and less helpful.

The best analogy I can come up with is if you were learning a language, and it was hard. You came across someone who promised to teach it to you “the easy way,” and you followed their materials and yes, it was easier and less ambiguous to you. But they were teaching you a grammar based on your native language, and the wrong vocabulary. The relationship between the actual language and what you learned is minimal at best. You learned faster and it was easier, but was it really worth it?

Some people may say that this is a bad metaphor because they actually got something that helped them from these other people. But unfortunately, they accomplish the exact opposite of what David teaches. The only thing they share with his work is (some) terminology, even when they have used his book, or parts of it, as their source material.

And yes, the material that David puts out and that I follow is not as easy to follow. That’s because the point of view is completely different. As I have been able to learn from David Kibbe, I now understand that a gallery or “outfit ideas” or “coats” for a specific Image ID are not helpful. What is important for people to do is develop an understanding of their own yin/yang balance and to put together outfits thinking of them as a whole, not parts. Trying to teach people to see in a new way is not as easy or as popular as simply showing a bunch of visual aids. But the latter is simply not how David works in 2019.

So yes, I use my platform to speak out against misinterpretations of David’s work and the people who profit from them. I also do not allow these misinterpretations in any of the Kibbe-focused spaces I run. I understand that not everyone is going to like it–some people prefer the “easy” way, and there’s nothing I can really do about it except continue to set the record straight in the spaces I do have control over.

There are many, many people on the Internet posing as Kibbe “experts,” whether they’re making videos, writing blog posts, charging for typings, offering advice on forums, or some combination of the above. I do not consider myself a Kibbe expert as in, “I can ‘type’ you just as well as David can!” But I have had the privilege of being able to work with David for the past few years managing online communities with his participation and blessing, so when I see people spreading incorrect information, it is very frustrating for me. I thought I would share some signs that will help you distinguish people who have an understanding of how David’s system works in 2019, versus people whose understanding of the system reflects the long line of misapplications and misinterpretations of his work.

Now, I will also say that in the early years of this blog, I may have committed some of these “sins,” because we simply didn’t have the information and access to David Kibbe that we have now. (If you see a post that seems like it reflects these ideas and doesn’t have a note saying it’s outdated, please let me know so I can add one!)

1. They use Classic, Gamine, and Natural.

We have known for years that David no longer puts people in these Image IDs. Everyone is either a little more yin or a little more yang. If someone is making content and using these IDs, they are either unaware of how David works now, or they are including them knowing that David doesn’t use them, which is worse, because they are knowingly spreading out-of-date information.

2. They use the terms “body type” or “Image Archetype/IA.”

These are not terms David uses. “Body type” implies that each Image ID has to look a particular way, when there are as many ways to get to a certain yin/yang balance as there are people within that yin/yang balance. I don’t expect another FG to be my body twin; we share a juxtaposition of yin and yang with a little more yang, not a particular shape. And “Image Archetype” comes from a copycat system and it’s a sign that the way they are more familiar with what they’re calling Kibbe doesn’t actually primarily come from David’s work.

3. They have galleries and Pinterest boards of “[clothing item] for the types.”

This is looking at David’s work in a prescripitivist way, and it’s not the way he works at all. Yes, the book has recommendations, but over 30 years have passed, and the way clothes are made now is very different. In addition, the recommendations in the book were never meant to limit you, but to paint a picture. In 2019 Kibbe, you think about an outfit from head to toe and how to make it work with your yin/yang balance. When people from the Facebook groups started going to see David in person, it was amazing just how much different the way he actually styles people in particular Image IDs is from the image we held in our heads. And frequently what people are positing as a suggestion for an Image ID doesn’t make sense, like dresses that clearly require a strong shoulderline to hang correctly being suggested for a Romantic, or they’re very limited, like SN=90s movie art teacher (which is so bizarre to me, considering that the SN combo of strong-but-sensual is the kind of beauty I see most honored in our current culture).

4. They use “masculine” and “feminine.”

In the 1920s, Belle Northrup specifically selected “yin” and “yang” to avoid the feminine/masculine dichotomy. Your Image ID reveals your special kind of feminine beauty, if that is how you wish you to be seen. Many women held up as a paradigm of feminine beauty are, in fact, in Image IDs that are not yin at all.

5. Their information contradicts David’s.

They say celebrities are in different Image IDs than David has said, or they tell you that you can be tall and still be a Theatrical Romantic if you “look short.” If you’re new to Kibbe, though, you may not be able to sift through what is in line with what David says and what isn’t.

6. They use the quiz.

The quiz as a tool is no longer necessary, and is in fact discouraged because you are looking at features in isolation, not the gestalt of your yin/yang balance. And David has written a series of exercises, which are a far better means of getting to your Image ID than trying to figure out if your legs and arms are short or slightly short.

7. They type you.

Even if I have an idea of someone’s Image ID, I would never tell them. It is their journey to find out. If someone places themselves in an Image ID that they are clearly not, like the tall TR example mentioned above, then I would mention that, or I will respond to questions in comments based on how someone is describing themselves. But I would never look at someone’s pictures and tell them what Image ID I think they are, and I would definitely never accept money for this. People who understand Kibbe understand that David can’t teach you to see the way he does, and that’s okay. He can help you see yourself, but being able to “type” your friends and family isn’t the point. He is not like Carol Tuttle, who puts out content to teach you how to type other people. The only people who can really tell you your Image ID are a) David and b) yourself.

This is really just the beginning, but these are some of the clearest and most common tells that someone is not giving you the correct information about David Kibbe’s work. I also have a Kibbe FAQ, and David Kibbe’s new website is a great way to get an understanding of how he actually works.

This is something I see a lot, in the comments here and elsewhere: people say that they were analyzed in Kibbe by someone. Sometimes, I even get emails asking me to do this, although of course I never agree to do so.

The fact is, however, that there is only one person you can pay to find out your Kibbe Image ID: David Kibbe. Anybody claiming to have been trained by him, or posing as an expert, or even, in some cases, offering courses that teach you how to “type” people in Kibbe will bring you no closer to knowing what David Kibbe would type you as if you went to see him.

I have never seen anyone who claims to type people in Kibbe actually possess an understanding of yin and yang the way David uses it. I used to say that an analyst claiming to type people in Kibbe has a one-in-ten chance in getting it right (since there are ten Image IDs), but now I believe that their chances of getting it correct are even lower, because they are not applying yin and yang correctly.

There are only two ways to figure out your Image ID: going to see David, or doing the work yourself. Kibbe’s system isn’t a checklist of body parts. The quiz is meant to give a general idea, but you can’t use it as a checklist, or assign each question a point value (the way some people who take money for this do). My belief is that we all can read David’s work and intrinsically know who we are, but we have resistance that keeps us from allowing ourselves to see it. I have always understood what kind of woman I am, physically, but when I discovered Kibbe, I thought I could magically be something different and looked at SN, SD, TR, etc. But living in my body my entire life, knowing what worked for me, and knowing what women on screen and in magazines “felt like me” and which seemed “different”–there is nothing I could be apart from one of the Gamines. And I think for most people, it’s the same. We know who we are.

The point of David’s work isn’t to give you a box to fit into, with a prescription of clothing to wear–especially now that clothes have stretch and fit around the body, rather than imposing a shape onto the body. It is to enable you to let go of what you are not and accept and love who you are.

Putting you into something that isn’t what you are and giving you a list of clothes to wear accomplishes the opposite of what David does. It puts you into a box that isn’t even your own. David’s work is supposed to set you free, not cage you.

So if you see someone offering a shortcut to finding your Kibbe “type,” don’t fall for it. You don’t need them to tell you who you are! And they will just get it wrong anyway.