Why your clothes look too big, or too fussy

What actually moves it

A garment that fits and still looks wrong is usually the right size at the wrong scale, and scale here means wrist thickness and joint size rather than anything on a label.

6 rules in the table produce this effect: 1 in your favour, the largest worth +8, and 5 against, the largest worth -12. The deltas are what each is worth at full strength against a neutral garment, and they add, so one rule pulling -12 is not undone by two small ones pulling the other way.

• By the usual convention: a larger frame has the surface area to carry pattern at full scale. (+8, whatever your shape, on a broad-boned frame) [bold-pattern-large-frame]

What works against it

The same table, read for what it penalises. The most expensive thing you can do to this goal is worth -12 on its own, which is past the ten points that move a garment from "depends" to "skip": a bold pattern outscales a fine-boned frame and starts wearing you instead.

None of these are keyed to a shape. They read your height, your torso-to-leg split and your bone scale, which is why the answer can be firm without anyone knowing what shape you are.

• By the usual convention: a bold pattern outscales a fine-boned frame and starts wearing you instead. (-12, whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame) [bold-pattern-small-frame]
• By the usual convention: oversized volume swallows a shorter frame instead of draping on it. (-12, whatever your shape, at 163cm) [oversized-short-frame]
• Heavy fabric overwhelms a small frame before it ever gets to drape. (-9, whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame) [heavy-weight-small-frame]
• By the usual convention: a heavy sole under a fine-boned frame makes the feet the loudest thing in the outfit. (-8, whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame) [chunky-sole-small-frame]
• By the usual convention: at this scale a micro pattern reads as noise. It disappears against a larger frame. (-8, whatever your shape, on a broad-boned frame) [micro-pattern-large-frame]

Where it depends, and on what

2 garments here are argued in both directions by the rules on this page, and a bold print is the widest of them: +8 at one end and -12 at the other. That is the answer, not a failure to give one.

The rules also stack. 1 of the combinations below puts two of them on the same person at once, and the largest lands -10.2 on a chunky sole once heavy-weight-small-frame and chunky-sole-small-frame have both fired. Two rules pulling the same way is the situation that produces the numbers people find hard to believe.

Bone scale is a photograph read, corroborated against chest divided by height. Where the two disagree the table keeps the rule but drops its volume to 60%, which is why several effects below land short of the delta they carry.

• Bold-print tops: +8 whatever your shape, on a broad-boned frame.
• Bold-print tops: -12 whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame.
• Chunky-sole boots: +6 whatever your shape, at 163cm.
• Chunky-sole boots: -8 whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame.
• Chunky-sole boots: -9 whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame.
• Chunky-sole boots on a fine-boned frame on a straight up-and-down build: -10.2, with heavy-weight-small-frame and chunky-sole-small-frame both firing.

Every rule, with the number it carries

The full set, ours and the ones that contradict it, with ids so you can hold us to them. A rule from geometry is stated flat; one that rests on convention is marked as convention, because "this is how it is done here" and "this is how it works" are different claims.

3 of them never argued at full volume on the builds tested: bold-pattern-small-frame carries -12 and landed -7.2. Every rule is graded by how firmly the body sits inside the label that fired it, so a body near a threshold gets a quieter version of the same opinion rather than the full one, and the delta is the ceiling rather than the reading.

Every rule here was demonstrated on a real garment in the list above, so nothing on this page is a claim we could not fire.

• By the usual convention: a bold pattern outscales a fine-boned frame and starts wearing you instead. (-12, whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame) [bold-pattern-small-frame]
• Heavy fabric overwhelms a small frame before it ever gets to drape. (-9, whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame) [heavy-weight-small-frame]
• By the usual convention: a heavy sole under a fine-boned frame makes the feet the loudest thing in the outfit. (-8, whatever your shape, on a fine-boned frame) [chunky-sole-small-frame]
• By the usual convention: at this scale a micro pattern reads as noise. It disappears against a larger frame. (-8, whatever your shape, on a broad-boned frame) [micro-pattern-large-frame]
• By the usual convention: a larger frame has the surface area to carry pattern at full scale. (+8, whatever your shape, on a broad-boned frame) [bold-pattern-large-frame]
• By the usual convention: oversized volume swallows a shorter frame instead of draping on it. (-12, whatever your shape, at 163cm) [oversized-short-frame]
• A substantial sole adds real height and anchors a wider trouser. (+6, whatever your shape, at 163cm) [chunky-sole-short]

Whose body this is, in our terms

No rule on this page asks what shape you are, so there is no one shape page to send you to. All seven are below instead, because these rules fire on every one of them, and each of those pages shows them sitting alongside the rules that are keyed to the shape.

Each of those pages runs the same rules across seven builds rather than one, which is where a number that moves with your height stops being an average and becomes your number.

• A straight up-and-down build, also called a straight build or an H-shape: what we call a rectangle.
• Narrow shoulders and wider hips, also called a pear shape or an A-shape: what we call a triangle.
• Broad shoulders, also called a V-shaped build or an athletic build: what we call an inverted triangle.
• An average, balanced build, also called an athletic build or a proportional build: what we call a trapezoid.
• A fuller middle, also called an apple shape or a round build: what we call an oval.
• A defined waist, also called an hourglass shape or an X-shape: what we call an hourglass.
• Wider hips with a defined waist, also called a pear shape with a nipped waist or hips wider than the shoulders: what we call a spoon.