Alluring: What to Wear Now

This time of year can be tricky because you can start out at 30 degrees in the morning and by mid afternoon it could be in the 70's.  A lightweight, long sleeve tee is a great option for this time of year.  You can layer it in the morning, remove your jacket by the afternoon and push your sleeves up by late afternoon.  

The following suggestions are all for the Alluring Woman, but I've given you ideas for individual shapes.  I've also started to explain why you would choose this particular silhouette so that you can apply it to other items.

This is the perfect top for the Hourglass.  The faux wrap gives you a low enough cut to show a little cleavage without being too much.  The ruching in the middle draws the shape back in to show off your small waist.  The sleeves are slim cut but not too tight.  As an hourglass the thing you want to focus on is highlighting your waist and the delicate curves of your womanly body.  Let the fabrics skim your body but nip in at the waist (or you can belt your tops for the same effect). 

These cute little shoulder cutouts give the Rectangle an illusion of soft curves.  You may not realize right away by looking at this that the top is straight cut.  But by showing the skin at the shoulders you achieve a sexy, bared look without plunging into the neckline.  

The Oval is a tough shape to dress.  You want to do what you can to minimize the attention being drawn to your middle and keep the look feminine and sexy.  This top is full and gives you plenty of room to be comfortable, but the low cut still makes it sexy.  One of the most important things to remember for this shape is to stop the length of your top at the narrowest part of your hips.  If you go longer, it becomes a tent and if you go shorter you will draw attention to the widest part of your body.  

The Inverted Triangle has a real challenge not to look too sexy.  With a larger bust and narrow hips, a low cut top can be very challenging to wear.  A great alternative to show the shoulders.  This allows you coverage for your cleavage but remains ultra sexy.  By choosing something that has natural fullness in the top and nips in around the hips, you will show off your assets without adding volume where you don't need it.  Ask any man and he will tell you that shoulders are hot!

When dressing a Triangle you want to keep the emphasis on her small rib cage and shoulders.  A wide neckline on this top shows her sexy collar bone, her chest, it nips in around the rib cage but allows for room for her hips.  The ruching on this top helps to draw the top in where it needs to and doesn't look overstretched around her hips.

Mixing Personal Styles

Some of you have asked how to incorporate your primary and secondary styles.  Remember when you took the style test you probably had one that stood out from the rest.  That is your primary style.  You then had one or two other styles that were stronger than the others.  This is your secondary style.  You may be like me and have almost all of the styles, other than your primary, about even.  That is okay too.

So first and foremost, let's talk about your primary style and what you should do with that.  Let's say for example that you came out a Casual Woman.  You read the description and is sounds like you.  But, you look in your closet and it looks more like chaos woman than Casual Woman.  Go back to the description and pinpoint what resonates most.

Example

1. Clothes that move
2. Totes and backpacks
3. Knit dresses
4. Great fitting jeans
5. Shoes that let her keep moving, usually flats

Keeping in mind some of the basic traits of a style will help you when you start to incorporate your secondary style.  For example, the Casual Woman may be an Alluring Woman as a secondary style.  Let's pick out a few key elements of that style.

Alluring Woman (secondary)

1. Big, dark sunglasses
2. Low, v-neck tops
3. Wrap dresses

Okay, a casual woman could wear a great fitting pair of jeans with a low v-neck top while carrying a backpack and wearing oversized sunglasses.  Or, she could wear a knit, wrap dress with a cute pair of flip flops and a big tote bag.  You start to see that you can take elements from both styles and mesh them to create your own personal style.  

Are you an alluring woman?

Do you light up the room when you walk in?  Do you enjoy a good party?  Do you make friends easily?  Is it important to you that heads turn when you walk by?  Are you a little bit flirtatious?  If you answered yes to any of those questions then odds are you are an Alluring Woman.  If you want to know for sure if this is your personal style, take the Style Test.  We will be talking about each one of the styles this week.

If you could only pick one word to describe the Alluring Woman it would usually be fun.  She enjoys being in a group of people and shining.  As a matter of fact, she loves the spotlight.  She will be the woman who makes an entrance as she walks into a party.  It is kind of like...the party can begin now that I'm here.

The Alluring Woman just shines.  People enjoy being around her because there is so much life to her.  She is often in a business that allows her personality to shine.  She may be a performer of some type, in sales, in the beauty industry or an event planner.

This woman's style is sometimes all over the place.  Because she is spontaneous, she may make impulse purchases that are not right for her shape or style.  The Alluring Woman will feel more confident and pulled together with a little wardrobe coaching.

It is important to this style not to feel too buttoned-up.  Whether her blouse is a little low cut, her outfit is form fitting or her skirt is short; she is more comfortable when she looks sexy.  She will benefit to remember to do one of these things but not all at once.

The top items that the Alluring Woman should consider having in her closet are:

Jeans with a nice, close to the body fit.
A well fitting black skirt that stops just above the knee or higher (with good legs)
Big, dark sunglasses
Lots of sparkly jewelry (costume is perfectly fine)
Wrap dresses
Nude heels that can be worn with most anything
Low v-neck tops (can be worn with just about anything)

The Alluring Woman really loves accessories.  She likes to change her handbag to go with whatever outfit she is wearing.  She loves jewelry and will often be wearing multiple pieces.  She has belts, scarves, hats, etc.  You name it and she has bought it!  She gets bored with her accessories so she shies away from buying expensive pieces and goes for good looking costume pieces instead.

Remember that everyone has a primary style and a secondary style.  If your style is Alluring first then this probably resonates with you.  If Alluring is your secondary style then you will incorporate elements of this style into your primary style but it may not fit perfectly.

For example, if this is your secondary style, you may not feel the need to have lots of accessories but you might appreciate a well-fitting jean that makes people turn their heads.  You may not change your bag with every outfit, but when you are going out you may want to carry a fun purse.  Take elements of this style that feel right and incorporate them into your style.

We will talk about specific outfits and how to pull them together when we get into the body shape discussions.