Is it just me or is it all bollocks? It always seems to be about "balancing out" your wide bottom half by totally disguising your nice, neat, perky top half. My neck, arms, boobs, waist etc are my good bits, why would I want to swathe them in a great big tent of material that "skims" my hips? That just allows the widest most inelegant point of my body set the width of all the rest. I absolutely know that I look terrible like this, and much better in something closely fitted that emphasises my good bits and accepts my Saxon peasant woman hips for what they are. Which is the total opposite of the advice.
I'm interested - is this the case for other shapes? How do you dress for shape if you are a pear, and if you're not do you ever notice pears dressing for shape well/badly?