Why the Body Type Labels Don’t REALLY Matter

This might be a slightly controversial post topic, especially since I write so much about the Kibbe body types, but in my opinion, the labels of which body type a person has, doesn’t really matter, or at least, it doesn’t matter as much as we give it credit for.

Why?

Because what matters more is: knowing what doesn’t actually work for you.

I consider myself to be a gamine or soft gamine, and though I’m quite short (5’2″ or ~160 cm) I have long arms and legs, and I tend to look taller than I actually am, especially in photos. This gives me the impression of being extremely petite in person, because my bone structure is very slender, but I have soft facial features and some added roundness in my hips and thighs.

The reason why I say I’m a gamine or a soft gamine is because I have a couple of features that are asymmetrical (my waist and hips). One side has both as answer D on the body types test (softer and more defined waistline and wider hips) and the other side is straighter, answer B on the body types test. This is because the bone structure itself is noticeably asymmetric, especially on my rib cage.

And also because when I was younger I used to be softer but I have become ever so slightly sharper as my body has finished developing. The flesh on my arms is more taut, and I also have a more balanced jawline because of the surgery I had to correct a jaw issue I was having. So overall, my body is a lot more balanced between the extremes of Romantic and Dramatic, but I still have a lot of mixture.

But the thing is, it doesn’t matter too much if I’m a gamine or a soft gamine, because I know what doesn’t work for my body type since I know which family of body types I’m in.

For example, I found out the hard way (through much trial and error) that I can’t pull off wide, boxy, and unconstructed clothes, especially when they’re long. And since I’m so short, most stuff is too long on me, especially when it comes to my torso.

Do I still sometimes wear oversized things? Yep! But only very specific items and usually paired with very tight pieces of clothing.

Another example is: I have a long vertical line. Yes, I’m short. But I don’t look short, especially in photos. But I find it very difficult to pull off a true monochromatic look, despite my long vertical line, because one long line of color just doesn’t look right on me. So instead of doing a true monochromatic look, I tend to pair different shades of the same color, for example light grey and dark grey. This way I get the monochromatic effect, but the shade differences still create the look of color blocking.

And lastly, when we become overly obsessed with the labels of body types, we tend to become fixated on the stereotypes of the body types as well. One of the stereotypes of flamboyant gamines is having a very straight waistline, but Audrey Hepburn, one of the more famous examples of a flamboyant gamine, had a very defined waistline (sometimes described as a waspish waistline).

So while the labels of the body types do matter, we don’t need to become obsessed with them, or obsessed with the stereotypes that they carry.