Archive of ‘Kibbe’s Metamorphosis’ category

A New Chapter in My Kibbe Journey, Part Two

In my last post, I mentioned that David had reached out to me and offered his guidance. Of course, I took him up on this generous offer! After some back and forth, he let me know that he could really only see two potential IDs for me based on my physicality: Soft Classic or Soft Gamine. And based on everything he knew about me, he thought that Soft Gamine would be the more likely of the two. Also, I definitely had Double Curve!

(Caveat: David doesn’t type people online. I would still have to see him in person for a 100% confirmation. And the best way to find your ID if you can’t make it to NYC is still to do the exercises in Strictly Kibbe. I’m not saying they didn’t work for me–they did get me to a place where I saw I was much more yin than I had wanted to admit to myself. David just saw that he could help me more directly.)

Once I started rereading the SG section, it made a lot of sense, both why I was a Soft Gamine and why I had yin resistance and wanted to be more yang. Soft Gamine has very yang energy, which is why I was so drawn to yang angularity, despite having a more rounded body and apple cheeks. This quote in the Soft Gamine makeover writeup in the book resonated with me:

Heidi was afflicted with what I’ve come to call the “Soft Gamine syndrome.” How does one integrate an outer physicality that clearly spells adorable, doll-like and bubbly, with an inner spirit that is filled with drive, spunk, energy and ambition?

I can see how I embody these contradictions. Even at 36, I feel like I still appear cute and youthful–but I am also known for having a strong personality and being very driven. I love this scene from The Golden Girls where Betty White flips from sweet and innocent to “don’t mess with me” in no time at all:

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is how when I first came across Kibbe, I believe that Soft Gamine was my first instinct. I do think that if someone just sits and reads the whole book, without looking at anything on Pinterest or asking people on various forums for their opinions or watching YouTube videos, most people will land in the right place. I had lived as myself for long enough to know, in my heart of hearts, that I didn’t really have the straight, more yang body of a Flamboyant Gamine. But the way Soft Gamine was portrayed on the Internet was so girly, so ingenue. It didn’t really feel like it was something I could inhabit and still honor my yang energy.

But I have a better understanding of what Soft Gamine actually can look like now that David is invovled in the community. I am still working on developing my personal Soft Gamine look, and it is a challenge in our current fashion times. It is hard to find clothes with a precise fit that have a lot of design details. I have started putting together a Pinterest board with looks from Soft Gamine celebrities. Right now, this look from Eartha Kitt feels like akin to what I could see my everyday style as being:

Eartha Kitt

I hope that the fact that I decided to revisit my assumed Kibbe Image Identity after eight years will help others give themselves permission to question and explore if where they have placed themselves doesn’t feel right. Here I was, eight years in, the co-founder of what is regarded as the official Kibbe community, helping other people on their journey–and I couldn’t type myself correctly?! I could have seen it as something that would undermine my credibility. But instead, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It has helped others gain clarity on their own place in the system too.

What do I hope people take away from my experience?

It’s okay to be wrong.
I think every time I have mistyped myself in a system, it’s been what I needed at the time. I experienced it with typing myself as Type 4, and I think it’s the case here as well. I may have just needed that time leaning into my yang side in FG in order to be ready to accept my more yin side. And it doesn’t mean you were clueless about the system you’re working with–it can be easier to see others than to see yourself. True, there were things that David clarified that helped things fall into place for me, and I now am able to use this information to do a better job helping others, but having additional information now doesn’t mean that I wasn’t doing the best I could with the information I had.

Don’t let the sunk-cost fallacy keep you where you know you don’t belong.
Yes, you may have spent time, money, and energy on adapting your wardrobe and your mindset to a certain type. But if you know it’s not the right fit, don’t let those things keep you there and spend more time, money, and energy on the wrong things. You can start fresh. And as I said above, the past wasn’t a waste; it got you where you are today.

What is right may not be comfortable.
I think for a lot of us, there is a kind of contradiction inherent to our relationship to our Kibbe Image ID–it resonates, but it also dredges things up. I don’t really have much of the yin resistance that he outlines in the book, but for me it was more of a lack of attraction towards a more yin aesthetic in general. Yin was uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure how I could incorporate more yin and achieve a style that felt true to my inner self. I am still trying to work this out, and I’m even revisiting my stack in Personality Squared. Does Sporty, Edgy, and Playful still fit? I am finding myself being less attracted to yang than I was, knowing now that I need more yin in my style. It is definitely a work in progress.

And in the end, I could go see David and I could be a Soft Classic after all. But that would be okay too. It would just get me that much closer to where I want to be with the image I create for myself.

A New Chapter in My Kibbe Journey, Part One

I’ve been writing about my own Kibbe journey on this website for a long time–I started it fairly shortly after I found David’s work. And throughout, I’ve never experienced that feeling of 100% certainty that I have it right.

I am very good at convincing myself that I see what I want to see. I did this with Type Four as well. And when I found Kibbe, there was really no good information about there. There was just the book, the way people interpreted the book, and people who had gone to see him. In the end, I went with where my inner self was telling me to go.

But I have never truly been able to claim FG with 100% confidence. It was just what I wanted to be. I was never one to share my outfits or anything like that. Maybe I didn’t want to give the chance to be proven wrong about myself. Maybe I knew deep down that I didn’t really fit the description.

But a couple of months ago, I finally felt like it was time to explore these doubts. A member of Strictly Kibbe shared her experience seeing David, and hearing the way she described her line made me realize that it was basically impossible for me to not have Curve in some way. My line would have to accommodate the curve from my bust pushing out fabric. I decided to redo the exercises, which I haven’t done since they were being written and posted in real time by David.

What came up for me during the exercises was that I had some serious yin resistance. I don’t think I have some yin-related issues or anything–I don’t relate to the kinds of things in the book about being seen as too sexy, or anything like that. Yin, and the aesthetics of yin, just had no appeal or resonance for me. It wasn’t something I was ever drawn to.

So when I got the sketch portion of the exercises, I first ended up with Width and Curve and decided to move to Soft Natural. This was still a yang space. It felt safe. It accommodated Curve, and yet it was still primarily yang. There was a relaxed simplicity of line that appealed to me. It wasn’t yin enough so as to trigger my yin resistance.

I got very excited about the prospect, in a way that I wasn’t excited about Soft Natural in the past. I watched a Jane Fonda movie or two.

Jane Fonda and Robert Redford

But then David reached out to me and asked if I wanted some feedback, which is where I’ll end this. Stay tuned for part two!

David Kibbe Has a New Book Coming Out!

Yes, it’s finally happening: David Kibbe has a contract for a new book. There’s been a lot of momentum in Kibbeland as of late, with the Vox article and a feature in The New York Times. And it’s all been leading to this, the news that Kibbe aficionados have been hoping for for years.

I don’t have many details yet on what it will entail, but I’m so happy for David and Susan. And I’m proud of the fact that Strictly Kibbe has reached nearly 10,000 people, and it was surreal to see the entrance quiz, which I wrote because I was exhausted by people coming from YouTube and getting upset that their fave YouTuber’s approach was not seen as equal to David’s, get quoted in the NYT! I’m so grateful for the role I’ve been able to play as admin of Strictly Kibbe. So many things have been happening lately!

But most importantly, I’m so excited that David will get to share his updated system with the world in such a big way! And it definitely motivates me to return to this space and finish my YouTube series on the original book before it comes out.

What are you hoping to see in a new book from David?

New YouTube Video: David Kibbe’s Metamorphosis Book: Foreword

When I finally decided to start making YouTube videos, I wanted to start with what I identified as the most pressing need in this space, and to me, that was making the content of Metamorphosis available to people who don’t have the book. Parts of the book are online, like the quiz, physical profiles, and checklist, but not that parts of the book that explained the purpose of the system. Without it, Kibbe becomes just another body typing system.

So I’m going to be going through book, making videos explaining the content in each missing chapter. If you’ve never had the chance to read the book, I hope these videos help give you a better perspective on what the system is meant to do for your style and your life.

Click here to view the Style Syntax YouTube channel!

Please check it out and let me know what you think! 🙂

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.

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.

Kibbe Style Icon: Audrey Hepburn, the Misunderstood Flamboyant Gamine

We all know that Audrey Hepburn is one of the major style icons of the 20th century, and she also happens to be a Flamboyant Gamine. Her style is often talked about as if it is exceptional for FG, but really, it’s only exceptional in that she was so exceptional–it fits perfectly within an FG context.

I think this is due to the fact that Audrey dressed so well for her Image ID that she was able to make items with a lot of design elements, or adding these herself, look classic, chic, and sophisticated. I will often see guides to “dressing like Audrey,” but they generally miss the mark. They tend to feature very plain clothes, the kind of things relegated to the “basics” category, and claim that this is how you achieve an Audrey look.

If you actually look at how she dressed, however, it’s clear that even when she wore similar items to those on the lists, she did something to them to add more interest, what we might call “breaking the line” in Gamineland. Yes, she wore a plain white shirt, but she added a knot. She always added flourishes that provided what we need for our yin.

I think this is a mistake that a lot of people who have more of a classic sensibility make when they come to FG. They figure that can follow Audrey’s example, and that she is kind of an exception, but she really isn’t. She embodied what it means to be a Flamboyant Gamine because she always knew what an outfit needed to take it from something anyone would wear to the level of design a Flamboyant Gamine requires.

So don’t think of Audrey as some kind of model for the way to do FG that “isn’t like the rest.” By studying Audrey, any FG can learn how to create that special quality unique to us.

Is Kibbe’s Book Relevant Today?

Some people seem to view the book as completely separate from “new” Kibbe, as if what he does on Facebook is totally removed from what he wrote in 1987. What he does on Facebook and on his website is painted as something totally different from what he said before. David has continued to work and develop his theory since the book came out, so naturally some things have indeed changed:

The Clothing Checklist.

Part of this impression stems from the fact that only selected portions of the book have made it to the internet, primarily the quiz and the descriptions of the Image IDs and their recommendations. This not only makes it seem like the system is a set of stereotypes you fit into, but, since nearly 35 years have passed since the book’s publication and clothing construction has changed radically, we are not limited to exact styles described in the book. In fact, due to these changes in clothing construction, trying to replicate the effects in modern styles might actually not even work. I think this is especially true for anyone who has to accommodate width or curve. “Flow” or “drape” in a non-stretchy material is very different from a stretchy cotton jersey, for instance. Clothing construction now means that clothing also tends to take shape of the body it is on, instead of the other way around. So one garment may suit several IDs, but they would all style it differently.

Classic, Gamine, and Natural are no longer given as an Image Identity on their own.

Everyone now is either the Soft or Flamboyant/Dramatic versions of these IDs. This also has the effect of broadening the descriptions of these IDs, since people who may have been one of these base IDs are now in the Soft or Flamboyant/Dramatic category. There are going to be SGs and FGs, for instance, who are going to be closer to the 50/50 split than before, but still, one of the two will win out. (This is not something that Kibbe has said, but rather my assumption based on the fact that these IDs once existed, and now do not.)

Makeup!

I don’t think any of us would want to wear 80s makeup, and David doesn’t want that for us either. David now prescribes the same watercolor technique for everyone, and you work with your bone structure. Glossy lips are also favored for all. So please, do not listen to YouTube videos that try to follow the heavy 80s makeup recommended!

Height.

The upper limits still pretty much hold true, but there is no lower limit for height in an Image ID, and SG and FN are no longer portrayed as the only ones that are “very petite” and “very tall,” respectively.

What Hasn’t Changed

As I said in the beginning, sometimes people act is the book is just completely outdated, and what David teaches you in Strictly Kibbe is completely different. But when I go back to the book and read it, I see the same David on the page as the one I encounter in Strictly Kibbe.

The Process.

What unfortunately didn’t make it online–and what I really wish had!–is all of the content besides the quiz and the descriptions. In the book, David lays out how his system is different and the idea at the heart of it (creating your unique “Total Look” by integrating your finite outer appearance with your infinite inner self). He then introduces you to yin and yang as used in the system, and how you can rectify these two different selves, if there is a conflict. There are 25 pages of text before you even get to the quiz, and then there is a fantasy quiz, for you to understand your inner self better. Like today, you are thinking about yourself and your dreams, and you understand yin and yang, before you ever get to the quiz. The lack of this foundation in yin and yang is why people have such trouble with the quiz. I remember the first time I took it I scored myself as extremely yin, because I didn’t really understand that measurement and shape weren’t the same thing.

The Fundamental Yin/Yang Balances and Image ID Descriptions.

This is the portion before the checklist, where he describes each Image ID. This is really where I find the “meat” of the information about the Image IDs. They make it clear to me why David got rid of the “middle” types, because I think these work even when you don’t have those. For instance, for FG, the description of the yin/yang balance says: “Physically, you are Yang in shape (angular), Yin in size (height). Both sides are important, but Yang is dominant.” This makes complete sense to me as an FG. SG is “slightly angular” in bone structure and “Yin in shape (curvy flesh, rounded features).”

He describes the overall silhouette like this:

Your overall silhouette is composed of Yang shapes: very angular and geometric, straight lines with sharp edges. Your important Yin secondary characteristics are expressed by working with broken and staccato lines and detail.

This alone captures how I approach dressing for my yin/yang balance. Armed with this, I really don’t need all those “recs.” I work with these angular-but-short straight lines and add detail.

Color.

David’s color system seems to be largely ignored, but I definitely feel like he regards color as equally important to line. He teaches it basically exactly as described in the book, and works with the same seasons and, while the makeup application techniques have changed, the same colors still work.

If you have the book, I would definitely pull it out and read it and see whether you can see Contemporary Kibbe in its pages. I know it’s now hundreds of dollars on Amazon, but it really is a wonderful book with a lot of insight. He says he will write another, so let’s cross our fingers!

These are just the things that came to me when looking through the book, so if you have any other questions about the book vs. what David says today, please leave them in the comments.

Height in Kibbe: 2020

A couple of months ago, I rewrote an old post on this blog about the “curvy” Flamboyant Gamine. This blog has been around for a long time now, and the older posts date from before David joined the Facebook groups and changed the way all of us see and work with his system. It feels like the most appropriate thing for me to do, rather than make a whole bunch of posts private, is to continue to rewrite posts to update them to how I understand the Kibbe Metamorphosis system to work now.

Today, I’ll like to go back and write about height in Kibbe. This is a subject of some controversy. You can find all kinds of things on the internet, like height is just one factor of many, and shouldn’t be given more weight than something else. But let’s remember the basics of yin and yang. Yin is short and rounded; yang is long and angular. Your height is key to this very fundamental aspect of yin and yang.

1. Why can’t certain Image IDs be taller?

R, TR, SG, FG, and SC all top out around 5’5″ (SC 5’6″). Why? Because the taller you are, the more prominent yang is, and it starts to become too much length (yang) for these balances. TR is much more yin than people seem to think, especially. Gamines need to be compact, and you would lose that compactness with more length. SC, of course, needs to be moderate, with extra yin, and you cannot have that with length.

2. Why are tall women limited to three Image IDs?

Literal length is automatically yang. At a certain point (which seems to be around 5’9″), a woman automatically has a dominant vertical (Dramatic, Soft Dramatic, or Flamboyant Natural). You automatically have a strong vertical, because it’s literally there. And then what you have is vertical, vertical with curve (and perhaps width), or vertical with width. There is no way to get to moderate, or juxtaposition. You always have that vertical you must honor, because it’s literally there. You cannot ignore it while dressing, or you’ll look like you’re wearing the clothes of a much smaller person.

3. But [celebrity] is taller!

First, celebrities are not intended as data points. They should not be used as points of comparison. They are there as “lodestars,” i.e., inspiration. Some celebrities David has seen in person; others he hasn’t. There is far more emphasis placed on celebrities around the Kibbe-focused internet than there should be. The best examples of an Image ID are people who have actually gone to Kibbe and been given a Metamorphosis by him. Celebrities are fun to watch on screen for inspiration, but should not be taken more seriously than David’s own words on an Image ID. Please, please never bring up Rihanna being 5’8″ and in TR to me ever again. If she is truly 5’8″, she would no longer be in TR. Same with every other celebrity listed with a height taller than the range for the Image ID.

4. Why can shorter women be in the taller IDs?

Women who are shorter but in a taller Image ID (i.e., a 5’3″ SD) are there because they still have a vertical that needs to be addressed in clothing, even if they aren’t literally tall. But you cannot have it the other way around, because literal length always has to be addressed.

5. But what if people are taller in my country?

Your Image ID is the same no matter where you are. It’s not relative to your surroundings. If people tend to be taller in your country, that just means there are more yang people in your country. How your body needs to be accommodated in clothing doesn’t change. This is the same for ethnicities. You are assessed as an individual.

Conclusion

Basically, height comes from the way yin and yang works. If you think about it in terms of the basics I have in the beginning of this post–yin is short and rounded, yang is long and angular–it helps makes sense of why height plays such an important role in your Image ID. If you think about what “moderate” means, for instance, and why Cs are described that way, the fact that Classics aren’t going to be 6′ tall makes perfect sense. And if Gamines need to be compact, they just can’t be tall either. And so on. Thinking about yin and yang will help you make sense of the question of height.

Why Strictly Kibbe Is Private

This is something I see a lot in online chatter. People don’t really understand why Strictly Kibbe is a private group on Facebook, and why it’s not public. There are many reasons for this, and none of them have to do with being elitist, or making David’s work harder to access.

The first is history. The Kibbe community was already established in private and secret groups on Facebook, and it made sense to stay on Facebook so that when we started a group with a new philosophy, people could easily join from the old community.

The next reason is privacy. I personally don’t like posting a lot of pictures of myself online, and I’m sure a lot of other people feel the same way. The Kibbe process is a very personal one, and I believe it works best when it is done in a space where people can allow themselves to vulnerable. I have clicked on photos people post on imgur when they’re asking for Kibbe help on other sites, for example, and I see random people leaving rude comments. We want people to be able to go through the process in a supportive, protected environment.

The last is an element of control, although maybe not in the way you think. I do want as many people to be able to access the information as possible, and as long as people follow the process, they are allowed in. The only people I don’t allow in the group are people who have a profile picture that catches my eye in a negative way (something that sets off my radar) or people who I know have an online presence where they are putting forth Kibbe misinterpretations. I have seen people use his test to type people or put portions of his book on their website while letting people believe that it is their own work. And if people make YouTube videos or blog posts that propagate misinformation (it is easier to blog or make videos about the wrong way than the right way, unfortunately), we also don’t want them to have the privilege of getting feedback from David either. David gives the kind of help and feedback other people have paid thousands of dollars to receive from him. But while you do need a Facebook account, I don’t look for things like how long you’ve been on Facebook–I know people create accounts just to join the group.

Additionally, David has information on his own site, www.davidkibbe.co, so if you’re on the fence, I suggest checking it out. The way he works with his own materials is very different from the way it’s presented elsewhere. The process isn’t what everyone wants, but when it works for you, there is no comparison!

I hope this clarifies some of logic behind why we have made the choice we have. The intent has always been to create the best space we can to learn about and discuss David’s work.

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