- When we think of body types,
many of us think of the traditional method
that takes into account our hip measurements,
our waist measurements and our bust measurements
and then those are supposed to be used to identify
one of I think five different body types,
and then give us dressing tips based on those unique types,
but what about the rest of our bodies?
What about our facial features?
Things like our prominent cheek bones or a prominent chin?
Or our height?
Or the the proportion of our head to the rest of our bodies?
All of these things all come together to make us uniquely us
and the traditional body typing methods
can be a little limiting.
So I recently came across something called the Kibbe Method,
and I think it's so fascinating,
so I want to share it with you in today's video.
I'm gonna go over what it is,
how you can use it to identify what you are in this method
and how that can be helping for getting dressed
and maybe identifying things that you like
and things that you don't like about your wardrobe.
So let's get started.
(slow jazz music)
Stylist David Kibbe believed that all of us
are a mix of yin, or feminine and soft features and yang,
masculine and sharp features
and figuring out how much of each of these
we have gives us one of five main body types
and then 13 subtypes.
So Kibbe believed that there were five main body types
ranging from all yin to all yang
and these are dramatic, natural, classic, gamine
and romantic and then these five types
can flow slightly into one type before it
and then immediately after it and that gives us 13 subtypes.
So those 13 are dramatic, soft dramatic, flamboyant natural,
natural, soft natural, dramatic classic, classic,
soft classic, flamboyant gamine, gamine, soft gamine,
theatrical romantic and romantic.
So to figure out which type you are,
I recommend taking the quiz.
I took it a couple of times
'cause it's kind of confusing at first
but I'll link it down below for you
and then start looking up some of the people
that identify with those body types.
There are so many great discussion boards,
I'll link some good ones down below.
Then also celebrities that have been identified
as soft romantic, classic, et cetera, et cetera.
And pinpointing which of those kind of look
the most like you in your proportions
can be really helpful in retaking the test.
So for example, if I look at myself,
I have a slightly rounded face but I have high cheeks bones
and not too much drama going on,
I also have slightly rounded shoulders
and I'm not tall and I'm not too petite.
I'm kind of petite and then based on these
and the other characteristics in the quiz,
I think that I'm soft classic.
And this becomes really evident
when I see myself in really structured pieces.
I like them, obviously I still wear them.
I wear things that aren't supposed to be worn
by my body type, but it explains why
I really gravitate towards things
with slightly billowy sleeves or no collar
like I'm wearing today
and why I really feel at home in those pieces.
And what I really like about this typing system
is that it helps you almost find the tools necessary
to identify maybe why you've always been drawn to something
and why you really haven't been drawn to something else,
so it helps give a little bit of justification.
Maybe you really don't like how you look
in a structured white button down
and this quiz can shed some light on that.
So why is this information helpful
and how can it help you enhance your personal style
and help you understand more about your personal tastes?
Well, like anything designed to standardize our bodies
and kind of fit us into boxes,
it definitely has limitations and it's not perfect
and I don't think that it should be used to validate
what you should and should not wear.
This is not supposed to give you a set of rules
that you have to live by.
I completely disagree with that mentality.
I think you should always what you want when you want
and always try to find pieces
that make you feel amazing and then wear those
even if you're the only person that likes them.
But I do think that a tool like this can be helpful
in identifying similarities between pieces
that you already love and pieces that you don't.
So I know personally when I took the test a couple times
'cause I had to work through it a few times
to really try to pinpoint what was correct and what wasn't,
I started to realize that most of the pieces
that I've been drawn to over the years
are all very similar to what's recommended
for my personal body type.
Now, that doesn't mean that I don't have pieces
that aren't recommended, I definitely do,
but I am gravitating more towards those things
'cause they just feel in synergy with me, I guess.
They just work and I really like them
and I think that that's so cool
and I think that that's something
that can save you a lot of time
so I think this can be a very helpful test
if you've been a little bit lost in wardrobe curation,
maybe you're trying to find
your personal individual unique wardrobe basics
and you keep going down the wrong path
because you're following recommendations from someone
that you respect and like but they're so different than you.
This can be helpful.
I also love that this system seems to celebrate
what makes us unique and our own individual body types,
rather than giving us tools to camouflage things about us
in order to make us all look like one body type.
It really celebrates the difference, it seems
and I really like that.
I think that's what makes personal style so fun,
that we're all so different
and we should always bring that uniqueness to the table
when getting dressed because that's what personal style
should be in my opinion.
It should be a way to express yourself
and really allow you to stand out in a way
that's just perfectly you.
So ignore what everyone else tells you to wear
and what looks good on you, what doesn't look good on you
and instead, find pieces that make you feel great
and that comes with a whole set of tools
that are at our disposal and I think this one
when used correctly can do that for you.
If you'd like to see more videos like this,
featuring my top tips for doing more with less,
I would love to have you subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you in my next one.
Have a great day.
(slow jazz music)