Tips on How To Make Cashmere Sweaters Work For a Plus Size Frame

There is a dilemma about wearing cashmere sweaters when you have a plus size frame. If it is too loose, the garment will look lumpy and you will appear bigger than you really are. If the sweater is too tight, you will look like your body is ready to burst through your clothes.

This does not mean that you cannot wear cashmere sweaters. By all means you can; by all means you should. There are ways for you to do so. You will have to be more selective about the colors, patterns and accessories that you use. As with any other type of build you must know what aspects to emphasize and to minimize.

Go Monochromatic

It is all a matter of light. To the photographer and the artist, light and how you manipulate light is everything. The colors and the patterns of your clothes help you to achieve the visual effects that, to the eye of the beholder, will make it appear that you have shed some plus from your size. Darker colors make you appear thinner while light colors tend to do the opposite. Vertical lines on your clothes make you taller and leaner while horizontal lines make you look squat and wider. You will have to look for cashmere sweaters that allow you to play with light.

You may have observed that clothes using only one shade, especially if dark and non-reflective, tend to minimize plus size builds. Cashmere sweaters in dark blues and browns will tend to make you look slimmer. To maximize the effect, it will be best to pair the sweater with pants or skirts of the same color so you will not break the movement of light from top to bottom.

Go Unidirectional

You want those who see you to move their eyes vertically, not horizontally, when they look at you. That will make you seem taller and slimmer. You can guide their eyes in that direction by wearing clothes with vertical patterns. If you want to wear cashmere sweaters with lines, make sure the lines are thin (not thick) and go vertical.

This goes with the fashion principle of loose-tight. You should use a cashmere sweater that fits you just right: not too loose, not too tight. You should then match that with a relatively loose-fitting pair of pants or skirt. The idea is to have only one body line from your feet to your shoulders. You do not want your body lines to look like a pair of parentheses but more like parallel lines instead. The closer you can achieve that with a loose-tight matching of pants and sweater, the better you will look.

The one-direction principle also applies to accessories. Scarves look particularly good with your sweater. Wear them loosely on your shoulders and let the ends dangle loosely against your body to accentuate the vertical lines. And since they go in a horizontal rather than vertical direction, belts will not go well with your cashmere sweater unless they are inconspicuous.

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