If you like stylists with an almost scientific approach to what to wear, you should check out Imogen Lamport’s Inside Out Style Blog. She’s a 34G, so she has some great advice specifically for us.
For instance, until I read her “How a Large Necklace Can Make Your Bust Look Smaller” post, I always gravitated toward delicate jewelry. Here’s the optical illusion she uses to make her point.
The center circle in each drawing is actually the same size, but the larger circles surrounding the center circle on the right make it look smaller. This was part of the motivation for my good necklace experiment that I wrote about here.
So now that I’ve been gravitating to larger jewelry, imagine my surprise at how successfully Kate wore this delicate locket when we met for coffee a week ago. This simple necklace drew my eye up from her bustline and mesmerized me.
I love hard and fast rules. Exceptions distress me, but let’s look at why Kate can get away with this after the jump. (I’m still looking at why Marketa can get away with a boat neck and why empire waists work on some but not all busty women.)
1. Kate is a 32DD and a size 4 at the most. In other words, she’s not very big. Those of you with 28, 30 and 32 inch backs always surprise fitters who expect you to wear a B, C or D cup, don’t you? In this case, it looks like large-breasted women with really small backs can do justice to delicate jewelry.
2. Kate is wearing black. My technical designer Nupur also designs jewelry that I can’t wait to post here soon. When she saw this picture, she pointed out that the necklace would be lost if Kate were wearing white, but by wearing black she sets it apart. This is why jewelers tend to use black backgrounds to display their wares. Nupur told me that they like black velvet because it absorbs all the light around the jewelry so that you only see the light reflecting on the jewels.
Can you think of other reasons that delicate works on Kate? Do you have examples of when delicate works on you?
