Can we stop commenting on peoples figures please ( unless they ask)

[Sidebeforeself]

I see so many threads on here when people post a picture of an outfit and then other posters respond with comments like “You have a fab figure”. I know people are just being nice, but thats not what people are asking . It’s so reductive - we should be able to say “ooh I prefer the green dress” and leave it at that . It’s different if someone is asking for comments about their figure, but if its a general question about the clothes that are wearing , it’s so unnecessary.

I think it was an interesting thread to make. At least one poster on here has said she hates getting comments about her body, whether or not the comment is intended to be a compliment.

To my mind there's a big difference between a compliment about someone's "fabulous dress" and someone's "fabulous figure".

The former is impersonal and is remarking positively on something the poster has control of . It's saying "great dress, good choice- you have good taste" .

The second type of compliment is far more personal and many women don't like that type of personal comment. The second type is also unhelpful if, as so often, it's blatantly untrue, or if it's being said , as so often happens, to have a go at a poster who hasn't chosen a showing off figure outfit.

I give compliments on the choice of outfit, both on here and in real life, not compliments on bodies.

I was being sarcastic. I’m not going to worry about whether you think I’m petty . I would be very small minded if I expected everyone to agree. It was something I’d been thinking for a while and as I say, it’s something I have done myself . So I thought I’d start a discussion about it

That was to @Fallingthroughclouds

@Sidebeforeself well you are both small minded and petty for trying to police what people say.

And there are also posters such as myself who don't mind compliments about their bodies. Best not to presume offense on behalf of someone else. S and B would be quite boring if we all responded the same way.

I don't think the OP was trying to police what people say.

If you read the thread several posters don't like "fab figure" compliments or don't find them useful, helpful or truthful. At least one poster finds comments about her body distressing. Posters have pointed out the "fab figure" compliments on here are often a back handed way of dismissing clothing choices as wrong.

The OP opened a discussion and invited thoughts. It's been an interesting discussion. If anyone is being "small minded and petty for trying to police what people say" I think it may well be you.

I disagree.

I mean it could be a backhanded way of saying the clothes are wrong but it could be a way of saying you look lovely but don't wear that dress. Which is normally the question in the OP.

I do sort of agree with you OP and it is a shame we are reduced to bodies so often. But fashion is a difficult thing to discuss without even indirect reference to bodies. 'it's flattering'(to your body) 'the colour suits you' (physically) 'its too low cut' (doesn't mean it's long does it... it means I can see your boobs) etc.

The board is style AND beauty. If it were simply style, I'd agree comments should be focused on the clothing, but with the 'beauty' tag on, people use the threads to also discuss faces, hair and body shapes and whether products, clothes etc make them look good; rather than seeing themselves as a coat hanger for a stylish dress.

This comes back to the distinction that clowniform made "I think there are two mutually incomprehensible tribes on here, one that sees the body as a canvas for clothes and one that sees clothes as functional tool for showing off/flattering/what-have-you the body"

which quite a few posters picked up on e.g Floisme

"For me it's more about the widespread assumption by so many posters that we should only wear what suits us and that anyone who doesn't go along with that must be some kind of fashion addled dimwit."

I think it's entirely possible to have a conversation about style, fashion and clothes without referring to "flattering" , "colour suits you" (I don't see the problem with "it's very low cut")

But again quoting Floisme "I can't see us ever reaching an understanding. ...We really are two nations divided by a common language"

Aren't the "beauty" threads separate? I don't read them or comment unless it's a thread like a recent asking something like "does anyone never get their nails done?" (Answer, never)

I've no interest in beauty.

I read some of both, and there is often a cross over. Like with nails, people will often be discussing what colours and shapes are in this season, which I'd say was about style. Same with make up shades, brow shapes etc.

Unless someone were wearing stick on day glo Flo Jo talons I never notice nails.

I've no interest in makeup, shades, brows. Other than foundation and a touch of mascara I don't wear make up. I might wear lipstick if I'm going to something dressed up, but not every day.

I don't know what "my colours" are and I wouldn't pay to have them "analysed" If I like the colour of a garment, it's "my colour"

I love clothes, always have. I spend a lot of money on clothes. I suppose I do see myself as a coat hanger for a stylish dress. That's a good way of putting it. Thank you. I get lots of compliments about my clothes and I like that.

I agree. I know my close friends and i know which ones welcome comments on their figure, so I reserve comments like that for them. Not strangers.

and some people with eating disorders find it massively unhelpful .

I've thought about this some more reading the other comments.

It's not the compliments I object too, so the comments that say, ' that looks lovely you have a great figure' is a really nice compliment.

What I object to is the 'showing off your great figure' bit! I think it feeds in to the dressing up for men thing & that why it makes me prickle!
That's beside the fashion bit of it!

The other side is the easy assumption on here that anyone wanting to flatter their figure is doing it for men. Because why else would you want to wear something flattering?🙄

I do not want to be a coat hanger for a dress, personally.

The topic is style & beauty, not fashion. It's not mainly about what's in fashion.
Being stylish surely includes flattering clothes so there's nothing wrong in looking for clothes that flatter one's body.

Has anyone said that's wrong? It's just not the only criteria or even one of them for choosing clothes. I suppose it depends what you mean by "flatter" comes into it. I feel good in a dramatic dress so I suppose that "flatters" me because I feel good in it.

Someone posted about clothes for "nice tits shame about the face" Perhaps that's an extreme example but "does this show my tits to their best advantage" isn't a criterion I'd use.

Of course there's nothing wrong with anyone choosing clothes that flatter. (One day I might start a thread on where this idea of 'flattering' comes from but let's park that for now.)

I think some of us are merely trying to say that firstly there can be other motivations for choosing clothes, and secondly that behind an unsolicited 'shows off your figure' comment there sometimes (not always, just sometimes) lies an assumption that no woman with half a brain would want to dress otherwise.

Oops cross post - with Natasha

But what's considered 'flattering' is so subjective: so broad as to be almost meaningless to the clothes-as-art tribe, and so specific to the clothes-as-tools tribe it's quite easy to guess their approximate age and social background from the kind of things they recommend as 'universally flattering'. Of course there's nothing 'wrong' in any preference, it's just that blindness to the things that shape perceptions of 'flattering' that is tiresome.

You can see so many posters in this thread who can't seem to conceive of complimenting clothes without reference to bodies, whereas those are the only kinds of compliments I give (and very often!) IRL, just as I'd compliment someone's choice of perfume or book. But maybe because like @NatashaDancing it's because I've never seen my body as something to be worked for/on so find compliments on that a bit weird at best, like compliments on eyesight or ethnicity (yes, have experienced both of those too...)
TLDR: nowt so queer as folk

Of course there's nothing 'wrong' in any preference, it's just that blindness to the things that shape perceptions of 'flattering' that is tiresome.

That's exactly it clowniform, thank you.

I'm a clothes as tools person with a question to the clothes as art people...
Where we CAT people select clothes to highlight the aspects of our appearance we like and disguise or detract from those we don't, so in short, the garment serves the body; do CAA people see their bodies as 'serving' the clothes? So if you loved an item, might you reject it because your body shape, hair colour etc didn't do it justice?

It's more symbiotic than that. The clothes serve my body and my body serves the clothes. So yes, I wouldn't wear an item if I thought the item on me wasn't showcasing whatever it was I liked about it - the lines, the cleverness of the design, the colour, whatever, even if I loved the item in itself.

Probably but hair colour wouldn't come into the calculation. Size - if it were too long and needed to be long for the full effect, yes, I'd reject it rather than shorten it.

Taking it the other way the Clothes as Tool approach would say for example Bombshell would suit me because I like 1950s dresses and I'm "curvaceous".

I don't like Bombshell because it's not original 1950s but a facsimile without the originality of other brands who take that style but add their own twists to it. Bombshell is I suppose an example of Clothes as Tools rather than Clothes as Art.