No matter how much you may love sausage, you probably don't aspire to look like one on your wedding day. But I'm seeing a lot of sausages walk down the aisle. Many beautiful, healthy women crammed into the dreaded and ubiquitous strapless white gown. I know. I know. The white, strapless dress is the "in" thing right now, but cocaine was the "in" thing in the 80s and that wasn't very good for people either. Don't give in to the peer pressure. Just say no!
Look, unless you plan on winning an Emmy, you'll probably have just one occasion in life to wear a beautiful white gown. So pick a gown that looks good on you! And the strapless gown is just not that flattering for most figure types. In fact, very few women, even the tallest and slimmest among us, can actually pull that look off. For most people it just makes you look short and stout, minus the handle and spout. And don't even think about that kind of dress if you are a full-figured gal -- there are so many better options. So please, for the love of God and the sake of your wedding pictures to be viewed by generations to come, when trying on dresses, please try on something that's not strapless. Have an open mind, look for a dress that flatters you, not necessarily for one that looks gorgeous on some waif model in a magazine. You'll thank me.
But you're still sighing over the latest Vera Wang/Reem Acra/Monique Lhuillier in your wedding magazine? Fine. I'll spell it out for you. The problem with the strapless gown is that all of the detail is horizontal - so it emphasizes width, not length. Take a piece of paper. Draw a line from one side to the other. Then look at a magazine, read a book or some phenomenal blog and then look back at the paper. What is your eye drawn to? The line. When you wear something strapless you're immediately attracting attention to your width. But a v-neck and sleeves -- that will draw the eye all the way down the body, not across. Down makes you looktall and skinny, across makes you look short and stout, with your height lost in the balance.
Still don't believe me? Well then picture this. You know how when you cook good sausage that you had to cut at the links it plumps on the ends and the casing retreats a bit? Not a bad look for a piece of luscious pork sausage. But that's not a flattering fit for a human being. You know your boobies? They need to go inside the dress - every last bit. Your back fat needs to be contained as well. When a strapless dress (and you know, for that matter, anything strapless) isworn, in order for it to cover your nipples, it needs to be the one in charge of your boobs. But if it needs to push anything out of the way in order to get control over the boobies, specifically that underarm fat thing attached to my boobs that I can't get rid of and have no idea what it's called so I'll call it arm-boob, then you get the squished out the top sausage look. Not pretty.
Still need convincing? Look at this gorgeous model. She probably has a figure most women can never, ever aspire to. (Translation: itsy, bitsy, skinny wench.) And yet even she looks bad in this dress. It cuts her off and makes her look far wider than she probably is. Now, the waist is definitely a problem here, but having the line drawn across her chest doesn't help.
(image courtesy of nymag.com)
Here's another model done in by the strapless white gown -- so very skinny and sweet but check out the arm-boob action happening. This is bad. She has arm-boob and she's already jutting her chest out. Do you want to jut your chest out all day long? I didn't think so.
(image courtesy of David's Bridal)
Please don't look like sausage on your wedding day.
Unless you're marrying scrambled eggs.
Or peppers and onions.