my thoughts on silhouette

In fashion, there are perhaps three important elements that makes an outfit visually appealing - silhouette, texture, and color. The elements that tie these three together involves concepts of visual continuity, contrast, and anomalies. These three elements shall be discussed in terms of how they work together with the concepts on how to establish a visually appealing outfit. It should be noted that these rules are by no means set in stone and should be challenged and tested if the wearer wishes to establish an idea. Finally, when viewing the images here try to evaluate them not whether or not you would wear them but whether or not you find them visually pleasing.

SILHOUETTE
Silhouette roughly the basic outline of the garment or outfit, typically represented as a single color such as black. An example of silhouette that is common in everyday situations is when a woman is referred to have an hourglass figure which means that they have large breasts, small waist, and a large rear. Another example for males is the v-shape or a swimmer's body where a person has large lats that tapers down into a solid abdomen. Notice that both involve only the outline of the person and removes any sort of embellishment or depth. Think of it as representing the 3D body in a 2D plane.

Since all clothing fundamentally requires an interaction between body and cloth, silhouette is an important part of clothing. With silhouettes, we typically speak of contrasts or continuity, in that a heavy silhouette should be offset by a tight silhouette unless the silhouette is extremely heavy which requires a continuity of heavy silhouettes. Generally, the point is that the inverse of A must be used to balance A unless the visual weight of A permeates the whole outfit in which A must pervade throughout the whole outfit. This may sound confusing at first, but hopefully a couple of examples should clarify this thought.

First, let us define what a heavy silhouette is. A heavy silhouette is any silhouette that extends the natural silhouette of the body either horizontally or vertically. Take this (http://i.imgur.com/3AXFexo.jpg) example of a natural silhouette. A garment that gives a heavy silhouette would twist or even distort this natural shape by adding shapes atop the wearer. A typical example of this would be this puffer jacket (http://i.imgur.com/MGyOETc.jpg). The puffer jacket extends the silhouette of the wearer horizontally by adding blobs of fabric atop the skin. Typically, garments with heavy horizontal silhouettes tend to be found in functional garments that protect the wearer from the elements such as the aforementioned puffer jacket.

Asides from heavy horizontal silhouettes, there are also heavy vertical silhouettes which similarly extend the shape of the wearer but this time vertically rather than horizontally. The dress (http://i.imgur.com/IfVHGQ4.jpg) is perhaps the most well-known example of this. Vertically heavy silhouettes tend to be heavily associated with ideas of elegance or movement.

That being said, tight silhouettes are the inverse of heavy silhouettes. They emphasize the wearer's natural silhouette rather than extending it in various forms. Athletic wear is a great example of this, with items such as leggings. Even skinny jeans (http://i.imgur.com/tFH6KyU.jpg) are examples of this.

Now, recall the earlier statement that silhouette is all based on continuity. A heavy silhouette should have a fully heavy silhouette from top to bottom. Examples can once again illustrate this point. Take this (http://i.imgur.com/uhjdMbR.jpg) example. We see the wearer have this extremely heavy jacket with shapes protruding from all sides be contrasted with pants that stack heavily on the feet, giving it an almost flaring silhouette to it. This is all coupled with a pair of thick-soled derbies. Consider if the wearer had worn some leggings and perhaps running shoes with this outfit. It would be clear that the person would look goofy as our eyes would find the contrast extremely jarring. Another example of extremely heavy silhouettes would be this (http://i.imgur.com/8Cs9NcC.jpg).

However, heavy silhouettes can be paired with tighter silhouettes so long as the weight of the silhouette does not extend the body in extreme ways. Notice how in this (http://i.imgur.com/eYwBt9X.jpg) example we see a very vertically and horizontally tight jacket contrasted with the heavy silhouette of the pants. The transition here is not jarring in the slightest as the pants tend to extend its silhouette horizontally during the end of the pants rather than in the beginning. Extremely heavy silhouettes contrasted with tight silhouettes can look weird in real life, with this (http://i.imgur.com/SNTl3nu.jpg) as an example. I would however say that since those outfits were shown in a runway show, it is permissible to an extent.

The ideas of silhouette can easily be extended when making fits on the looser spectrum. Either go on a full-on heavy silhouette with fabrics that hang off the body or add some much needed contrasting.

[UNFINISHED PART OF THE GUIDE ABOUT TEXTURE AND COLOR HERE]

CLOSING NOTES - EVALUATING OUTFITS
Nearly all outfits are based on one particular idea the wearer has in his/her mind. Such ideas could be something as specific as "I want to look like a gopnik" or something much more abstract like "I want to make an outfit that has a tight silhouette which slowly extends into a heavy silhouette into the bottom and use color/texture to help guide the viewers eyes." By this thought, outfits should be evaluated by how they translate this mental idea into a visual outfit. Not all ideas, however, are consciously decided by the wearer and more often than not they do this almost subconsciously. However, consciously decided or not, these ideas are usually implicitly hinted at by how the different elements of an outfit work together. A keen visual eye is needed in order to decipher how these work together and once deciphered an outfit can then be evaluated in its own terms. If one particular element does not help push forward this idea the wearer has in his/her mind, then it is bad in that regard. Conversely, outfits that are good are outfits that are unified - where each and every element works to push that certain mental idea. When this unity is achieved, nothing in the outfit seems superfluous and everything works together to deliver this tightly packaged visual experience. Building outfits is as much of an art as is painting. The only difference is that building outfits is a necessity for every living person.

So, when evaluating outfits as well as building outfits, keep this idea of harmony in mind. I'm sure you can agree that nearly all of your favorite outfits work in this regard. This guide cannot, however, teach you how to gain this ability to evaluate outfits. However, keeping this idea of harmony in mind when you see people walking down the street or someone posting in a WAYWT thread and trying to do this step-by-step can allow you to develop his visual experience. Also keep in mind the concepts of continuity, contrasting, and anomalies in silhouette, texture, and color discussed in the guide above as they will allow you to spot visual patterns which hint at the wearer's intent for the outfit.