Optical illusions trick your brain into seeing things differently from reality. Many influential designers like Geoffrey Beene use illusions as a fashion tactic, changing the appearance of one’s look with clothes and accessories. Like using hair contouring as a beauty hack, fashion pieces possess the power to alter your body in the eyes of onlookers. Here are three style tips on fashion optical illusions and how to use them to your advantage.
Appear Slimmer With Horizontal Stripes
Various patterns play tricks on the eyes, especially repetitive prints. They alter the way people view occupied space. A long-standing fashion theory is that stripes make you look thinner. Their designs move people’s eyes in a certain direction. Horizontal stripes capture people’s attention from left to right, while vertical lines direct the eyes from top to bottom. This visual movement changes your appearance, creating an illusion of length.
Wearing horizontal stripes produces a slimming effect. The number of lines and the length and space between each stripe make your body look smaller from left to right. Vertical stripes, on the other hand, elongate your height. As the stripes direct eyes downwards, your body appears longer.
Give Yourself an Hour Glass Figure With Flared Skirts
Like stripes and prints, shapes alter the illusion of occupied space. We learn to identify shapes early in life, so the brain finds it easy to identify them. They make up a huge component of one’s understanding of their surroundings because everything possesses a specific geometrical structure.
The outline of shapes provides different directional tracks for the eyes to follow, transforming the way the mind interprets visual information. Wearing certain shapes alters your body’s figure, providing you with a new geometric structure. Skirts with an a-line fit at the waist and a flared bottom create a triangular outline. Pairing a flared skirt with a shirt that also cinches at the waist creates another triangle, flipped, producing an hourglass. It slims your waist and accentuates your curves.
Change Your Size With Large or Small Bags
Bags bring a practical and stylish feature to an outfit. On top of providing you with a multifunctional accessory, handbags also produce an optical illusion. There are numerous reasons why the size of your bag matters, from functionality to visuals, including the way it scales you.
Carrying a small bag dramatizes the size difference between you and the bag. A small bag will make you look bigger and taller. Likewise, hauling around an oversized tote makes you look smaller in comparison. The bag size you choose creates a scaling comparison that alters how you appear alongside the bag and vice versa.
Styling outfits with different optical illusions, from scale comparisons to shape outlines, offers numerous benefits. It provides slimming, lengthening, and various other alterations without actually changing your body. Using these three styling tips allows you to create certain looks with a bit of optical magic and fashion.