Friday, December 14, 2007

How to Style the Little Black Dress

The season of parties and special events has started, but with all the choices of clothing to wear, a lot of women rely on their trusted and always stylish LBD (Little Black Dress).
It is a safe and very stylish choice, and a staple in a woman's closet, but most of all it fits any invitation: from the Holiday Party to the Black-Tie affair!

"The black dress is the embodiment of women's power. It's very stark, direct, and to the point." (Alexander McQueen)

The beauty of the Little Black Dress is that it is in a neutral color, so allows many ways to style and accessorize it, and manage to always look different. There are a few guidelines on how to style and accessorize the little black dress: You can't really make any color mistakes, but there are ways to get it wrong, like being too conservative or too gaudy. The only way to mess up a great Little Black Dress look, is to either over-do the accessories, or to just leave it as a "yawn", boring, plain look! My advice: accessorize with caution!

When styling and accessorizing, be balanced (just like when you dress your figure), you are trying to create a proportionate figure, so keep the size of the accessories in-line with the size of your body. It's very off-balance to have a petite woman with a super-sized purse, or a fuller figure woman's neck swallowing the small necklace!

If on the petite side, do attention-grabbing chandelier earrings, no necklace, and a couple of medium sized bangles on one arm, a cocktail ring on the other and a smaller clutch bag.

If on the heavier side do the same, but with a slightly bigger proportion in the jewelry, do also a pretty wrap, to carry around your forearms, it's slimming.

If on the slim side, bring attention to your face with a pretty necklace (one with many strands), do small earrings or studs, do looser bracelets (bangles will make your arms look smaller), or none at all, do a small clutch and wear a cocktail ring (it's a conversation starter).

Keep in mind the bust size: big bust no necklace, small bust do a big necklace. Bare in mind also, the style of the dress too, a necklace with a alter top style it's a no-no while it's a great addition to a strapless dress style.




The Little Black Dress looks best with bare legs or sheer pantyhose (to keep it elegant), leggings and tights will dress it down. Shoes can be fun: do color (red is amazing), or do a dressy black high heel, but have an interesting detail, like a red sole. If you keep the dress shoes simple, do metallic accessories or colored stones, to give some visual interest to the outfit. Skin color dress shoes are classy as well, and will enlongate the line of the leg (making you appear taller).

Any color jewelry will go with black, but keep it as monochromatic (or coordinated) as possible. Get a few ideas on how to dress up, or down a Little Black Dress, by checking the Gallery on the BeautyByElla Community, and see how celebrities style it for special occasions.

Be fabulous,

Ella

http://www.beautybyella.com/

http://community.beautybyella.com/

Personal beauty, fashion trends, style, glamour like celebrities dress, liittle black dress, luttle

2 comments:

allan Gering said...

The nice thing about little black dresses, not everyone can wear them. Even if you walk into a party or special event and someone has on a similar dress, no one notices the similarity. I hate dealing with the duplicate dress dilemma at special events.
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Glass Of Venice

b'luffed said...

love the little black dress, also love how you can style it so many different ways like this vid!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDjmeWolDPM