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.

Thanks for your replies @donkra and @NatashaDancing its very interesting!

@5128gap I liked your comment "as a coat hanger for a stylish dress". There's more than that obviously but it's a neat shorthand way of putting it.

@5128gap All the time! If my body means something would lose its original design appeal once on, then I feel the point's been lost. E.g. my bony chest could never support a Vivienne Westwood bustier dress (which I think gorgeous), so I only own skirts and jackets from them. My arse would disrupt the line of a graphic 60s shift, so I would rather admire them from afar than make alterations which would totally change the shape.
But everything within reason, so I wear a lot of Margaret Howell despite being too small-framed to do them full justice, but it's an alternative look that's a compromise I can live with and I wouldn't go in for shoulder pads or aggressive belting to force some ideal.

Art was probably a lazy term to use. I don't have particularly avant-garde tastes, and I enjoy experimenting with trends. It's just that I'd never buy something because it made my waist look 'tiny' or hid my cellulite or made my eyes 'pop' or whatever. Conversely, do/would you really buy clothes on that basis (or whatever flattering means to you) if you disliked the feel of the fabric, or found the cut/design boring?

I think its a lovely, positive and healthy way to enjoy fashion and one's appearance. I wonder what makes us fall into one camp or the other. But that would be a different thread!

That's a really good description of those dresses, actually. In themselves, they have no imagination or originality - their purpose is to make women with a particular body shape feel good about said shape. Which is a perfectly noble purpose, just not one which interests me, so to me they have zero appeal. Similarly, I wear clothes which the Trinny-and-Susannah school of fashion would strictly bucket as not "for me", because I'm short and curvaceous, but I wear them because I love their aesthetic and I'm really not that interested in "showing off my lovely figure". I think of an outfit as a complete effect, head to foot, in which all the items interact to make up the whole, including the makeup and accessory choices I make. I'm interested in enhancing a line or a colour interaction, not my boobs.

Oops, sorry for the word vomit when @donkra and @NatashaDancing so ably articulated things already! Great examples of Bombshell and T&S, both. And fwiw I am baffled by what 'season' I might be as the colours in my wardrobe don't fit into any palette, so I'm probably wearing the worst things at least some of the time.

So if you loved an item, might you reject it because your body shape, hair colour etc didn't do it justice?
It depends what mood I'm in. I was a devotee of dressing for your body shape for quite a long time and I still have days when I feel like showing off my waist while I've still got one. And I still remember a lot of the 'rules' so, when I look in the mirror and an outfit doesn't look quite as I'd hoped, I can often work out why, and that's still useful.

But equally there are many days when I don't care. On those kinds of days, I might choose an outfit purely because it gives me a swagger when I walk. (I definitely walk and move differently depending on what I'm wearing and how it makes me feel.) Or sometimes there's an element of dressing up and inhabiting a whole other persona - I've collected vintage clothes since I was a teenager and this is at least in part why I've always been drawn to it. Or on another day I might just like shape of the garment or feel of the fabric or the colour.

The point is that I don't regard any one of those reasons as intrinsically better than the rest; they're all just different facets of me.

@clowniform I think there are some similarities, because I too like some styles but wouldn't wear them because they wouldn't look good on me.
But absolutely, I do buy clothes that make my waist look tiny, my eyes look bluer, my skin tone more glowy. And yes, that would be my main criteria in choosing the item. I'd put the way it enhanced my own physical form ahead of quality and fashion (though not comfort!) and if I thought it made me look good, then I wouldn't see it as boring, because my eye would be on my tiny waist, popping eyes etc and my pleasure would come from how I looked, not how the garment looked.
Reading that back it makes me sound very vain and self obsessed, but I'm trying to be completely honest.

Thanks @Floisme it's fascinating to hear these perspectives.

@5128gap thank you for starting this fruitful subthread. I don't see how your approach is really any more vain than choosing clothes that signal one's aesthetic taste or trend-awareness 😉
As always @Floisme is wise. I'm sure most of us compromise most of the time, and that's even neglecting lifestyle and financial practicalities.

I think it seems vain @clowniform because of the inherent focus on, and appreciation for oneself, as oppose to the garment, the creativity of the designer, the skill of the tailor etc.
By appreciating the clothes you are valuing an asthetic derived from talent and work, not merely an accident of genes.
Also as I said before, it feels a more positive and healthy approach than for your pleasure in fashion to depend on how good your body looks in the clothes.

OMG the self-flagellation! I don't think it's vain @5128gap.

I am even more basic than I thought I was, clearly. Maybe it's because I don't tend to wear designer clothes.

I welcome the comments when I post. And I've had positive and negative. One makes me feel good, one means I don't go out looking like crap.

How about if I don't want comments on my figure in an outfit, I'll say so?

Lol. Not at all. We all have our faults. Vanity is one of mine. I can own it without beating myself up about it.

I'd say was all vanity in one form or another 5128gap. It just manifests in different ways!

I'm very vain.

I think it's a bit strange to put the clothes before the person.
Clothes are made by us and are here to serve us. First and foremost to keep us warm and allow us to carry out our activities. Secondly, imo to flatter us. They should work for us, not the other way around.

I don't see what it matters if people have different ideas about what is flattering, same goes for those who see clothes as art. They will have different ideas about which clothes are the good ones.

It's fine if people think it's strange. We only run into problems when personal opinions - e.g. that an outfit should show off your figure - are presented as some kind of universal truth that only an idiot would ignore.

@Gwenhwyfar agreed? And yet it's inevitable that posts on here asking if dress A or dress B is more currently fashionable or suitable for C context will get scads of 'Oh but X would be so much more flattering' 'You need Y to show off your fab figure!' 'Don't be such a trend sheep, Z is classic' type replies. While I don't really see clothes-first people piling on threads of 'Which makes me look slimmer, A or B?' with 'Wear Z it's art'.
It's a case of recognising the subjectivity of your personal tastes and not applying them indiscriminately to everyone else.

As a fat person, I call bullshit on the body as canvas thing. I love it as an idea, actually, but think it applies only to thin bodies so the 'flattery' thing becomes irrelevant.

"It's a case of recognising the subjectivity of your personal tastes and not applying them indiscriminately to everyone else."

Everyone knows their taste is subjective surely? That's what S&B is, a place to give your opinion on what looks good.

Well you'd be mistaken. Although your post demonstrates the point Floisme is making.

I’m a bit fifty-fifty on all of this, but even for the fashion-as-art people is it not also about proportion? The stuff people post that seems unflattering often isn’t about size, it’s that the waistband is in the wrong place, or they are overpowered by the print, or the length looks visually awkward. If I wear a sack-like dress I’ll make sure it’s counterbalanced by hair up, or shoes that look right visually. I always think creating a great silhouette serves both aims, and makes the clothes look their best.

Dunno about the awkward compliments, always see it as a way just to soften the asked-for feedback. I don’t really like people commenting on my body in rl but here it seems par for the course.