What You Need to Know About Vertical and Horizontal Stripes

  Is it true that horizontal stripes make you look fat and vertical steps make you look slim? 

 Is it true that horizontal stripes make you look fat and vertical steps make you look slim?

There has been much controversy over the issue of horizontal stripes and the visual weight they might add to your figure. Many simply wouldn’t dream of wearing horizontal stripes for fear of looking short and stumpy. Whilst making the assumption that vertical stripes will always lengthen and slim down.

Like many fashion issues this is a matter that is very much subject to personal taste. However many quote the scientific work of Hermann von Helmholtz and the Helmholtz Illusion. Helmholtz was a German scientist who invented the ophthalmoscope, an instrument used to examine the inside of the eye. He was concerned with visual perception. During his work he deduced that placing 2D images of equidistant horizontal and vertical stripes side by side that the horizontal stripes had a more slimming effect than the vertical. 

Psychologist Peter Thompson and Kyriaki Mikellidou from the University of York made a 2D black and white illustration of two women each in a sleeveless slip dress with horizontal strips on one and vertical stripes on the other. The horizontal stripes making her look slimmer as the eye travels up the stripes like a ladder. The vertical stripes causing the eye to go from left to right and making the woman in the second illustration look wider.

More recently Val Watham, a participant in Radio 4’s ” So You Want to Be a Scientist? ” challenged Peter Thompson’s (previously her mentor) conclusion. Based on the fact that this was a 2D drawing not a 3D garment on an actual person. So she made two garments of the exact same fabric and width of stripe one with horizontal and the other with vertical stripes. On the results of 500 people she came to the conclusion that vertical stripes made you look slimmer than horizontal stripes. Ms Waltham won the BBC’s Amateur Scientist of the Year Award in 2012 based on the results of her research

So if the scientists can’t agree what hope is there for the rest of us and how on earth do you decide whether you should wear horizontal or vertical stripes to look your best, tall, slim and wonderful? The answer is not that simple. There are other variables to consider such as your own height and body shape; the type of fabric used and the actual placement of the stripes which could vary in width and where they appear on the body. Taking these factors into account you will see with the images bellows that both horizontal and vertical stripes can be slimming or fattening! 

Let’s take a look at the effect of horizontal stripes:

And the effect of vertical stripes:

What  you really need to know about horizontal and vertical stripes is how they work for you, with your body shape, height, proportion, scale, and soma type. 

Next time you reach for a striped outfit take these points into consideration:

• Width of the stripe
• Placement of the stripe as it appears on your body
• Colour and contrast of the stripe 
• Fabric texture and fluidity
• Your own body shape, scale and proportion and 
• How you like to express your personal style

There is such an enormous variety of striped garments available you will be sure to find the best stripes to flatter you and resonate with your own personal style. 

What you really need to know about horizontal and vertical stripes is how they work for you, with your body shape, height, proportion, scale, and soma type. 

Next time you reach for a striped outfit take these points into consideration:

• Width of the stripe
• Placement of the stripe as it appears on your body
• Colour and contrast of the stripe 
• Fabric texture and fluidity
• Your own body shape, scale and proportion and 
• How you like to express your personal style

There is such an enormous variety of striped garments available you will be sure to find the best stripes to flatter you and resonate with your own personal style.