Monday’s “D+ Dressing without Stressing” workshop went GREAT. I’ve been working on it all year, but until I finalized the slides on Sunday night, I wasn’t sure I would have anything to say. That turned out not to be a problem–for two hours I shared my favorite lessons learned from blogging. Then I was hoarse yesterday!

One reason it has taken me so long to offer a workshop is that I’ve been waiting to feel like an expert. However, a few recent encounters with women who don’t obsess over dressing big breasts like I do has shown that I know a LOT about this subject. And your comments on this blog helped make some of my best points Monday night. Because of you, I could give the audience a perspective based on the experiences of many full-busted women, not just the one in front of them.

True to form, just as I’m always learning as I blog, I kept learning as I prepared for the workshop–and the learning continued during the workshop.  Here are two discoveries from the process.

1. I expected to use this Calvin Klein dress to demonstrate how to accessorize a neckline that’s higher than a high balance point, but it does a much better job of demonstrating the minimizing potential of color blocking. The two black side panels have the same effect as wearing a cardigan or jacket–they cut the visible area of our chest. This is a great option for hot weather when we don’t want to add layers, and there’s no worry about an unbuttoned cardigan flapping to either side of our chest. (Sadly, the armholes in this dress revealed way too much underarm bra.)

calvin klein color block bust minimizing

2. I thought this dress was going to demonstrate how a center panel of print elongates our torso and distracts from our chest, but I was wrong. Instead, it demonstrates once again the importance of grouping! Do you see how? If not, scroll further down to my markup.

dress print waistline boobs

dress print waistline boobs demo
The pattern divides into two sections–the top scrolls, which are grouped with the neckline, and the bottom scrolls, which are grouped with the waist. My bust gets grouped with the bottom scrolls and subsequently looks much lower than in the Calvin Klein dress, even though I’m wearing the same bra. The yellow is meant to demonstrate something that an audience member pointed out: the lighter color to each side actually widens my chest, which is the opposite effect of the black panels in the first dress.

We barely scratched the surface of all there is to know and think about dressing big busts on Monday night. As you might suspect from these photos, the emphasis was on work wear and how to create an effect of low boob prominence.