Etiquette Boss: Dress for success – ladies

This week, our ladies are in the spotlight, especially since coats will soon disappear and our clothing will be once more the focus of public attention.

From my viewpoint, successful dressing is any form of dress that makes a woman feel her best self. First, you need to know your body proportions, because two women can be the same height, and one appear to be taller than the other based on how your body is shaped.

If you have a short torso and long legs, you will appear taller than the woman who has the opposite proportion, because long legs take the eye on a vertical sweep. The pear-shaped woman who has a small waist and wide hips can appear shorter because the eye goes from side to side instead of up to down.

Such a person needs to avoid any form of clothing that causes the eye to focus below the waist. Wear beautiful necklaces, wide neck shirts, etc., to draw the eye upward.

The opposite rules apply to ladies who are triangle-shaped, or wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Proportion and balance is key.

If you are apple-shaped, with hardly any definable waist, go for empire lines that cinch above the waist line. Suit jackets should also be buttoned  at the smallest point, higher up on the waistline. Jeans should be boot cut to create proportion between top and bottom.

When your dressing problem is not knowing what to wear in spite of a full closet, ask yourself what impression you want to give that day. Do you want to appear serious and professional or casual and flirty? Select pieces that will project your intention instead of just scanning your wardrobe for something to wear. Dressing will be easier …. guaranteed.

Beauty Tips –  from Italy

• Buy organic oranges and save the peel. Dry and pulverize into a powder. Mix with whole milk or cream to reduce blemishes or dark spots. Another simple Italian beauty recipe is to pour boiling water over the peel, leave overnight, filter and use the next day as a toner.’
• Beautiful Italian ladies consume olive oil inside and out. They mix some extra virgin olive oil with fine rock salt and massage on hands and feet for baby soft skin.
• A superb facial is to use yogurt on clean skin, followed by rubbing the juice of a ripe tomato. Relax for 10 minutes and rinse for a face that glows because of exfoliation and tighter pores.

Phillipa Morrish is the president of Etiquette Training International.