Teen Style Lounge

Get Shorty: Tips for Looking Taller

by Liberty on November 7th, 2007

Okay, here we go ladies and germs. It’s admission time. The time when I, your TeenStyle blogging extraordinaire, come clean on a few matters of the heart. A time for you to get to know me a little better. A time for…well, whatever. Let’s just get on with it already.

Think you’re ready for the dish? Well, okay, let’s see:

1. I’ve been listening to Christmas music on my iTunes since September.
2. I have a ginormous crush on Dr. Rey from Dr. 90210.
3. I watch SpongeBob SquarePants even where there is no child within a 1 mile radius of me.
4. I’m short.

Woop…rewind. What was that? About the shortness? Yep, it’s true. I’m a peanut. Itty bitty. Teeny tiny. Plain and simple…short. (FYI, my driver’s license claims I’m 5′3″, but I was soooo stretching the truth there!) ;)

Sometimes I choose to embrace my shortness by wearing my skinny jeans and cutie plaid ballet flats, but some days I just wanna look tall, dangit. I want to feel strong and confident. I want to command attention when I walk in a room. I want to not have my jeans drag on the ground as I navigate my day.

I want to rock it out.

So, here are some tips I’ve compiled through endless web searching (see how much I love you) on how to make thineself appear a smidge longer than you really are:

• Dress Monochromatically. That means, simply, all one color. From head to toe. And no, it doesn’t have to black, and yes, it can be complimentary shades in the same color family, but the general idea is that dressing in all one color elongates your frame, making you appear taller and trimmer. Yeehaw!
• Wear wide-leg trousers or jeans. For some inexplicable reason, wider cuts seem to work quite well on us stubs. The belief is that they distract from the line of the leg and actually make your stems appear to be much longer than they really are. Can I get an Amen for that? Be sure to leave a little toe from your shoe showing, however, so you don’t end up as blog fodder like this shot of Jennifer Lopez.
• Embrace the babydoll/empire waist trend. These styles tend to make a short torso really lengthen and keep the eye engaged for a longer time. The same is true for tunics, so long as they are not uber-tight and you’re not sacrificing leg length for the torso’s benefit.
• Wear heels. Duh, no-brainer alert, President Obvious. Heels are God’s gift to shorties, so if you can handle them, wear ‘em. They work well with everything, but are especially complementary to those wide-leg trousers mentioned above. Not just any heel will do, though. Super-chunky styles and kitten heels can actually do more harm than good, so choose a nice streamlined heel with some height and you’re good to go.

These are all great tips that I need to start using, like, yesterday. Have I forgotten any? Is there a great tip that you’ve heard or that you’re actually using that you want to share? Let me know. Gawd knows my shorty bad self would love to hear it.

Recommended:

Wide-leg Jeans from Forever 21
Turtleneck Babydoll from Aeropostale
Tortoise-Heeled, Platform Peep-Toe Pumps from Target

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POSTED IN: Casual Clothes, Jeans, Shirts, Shoes