Two summers ago I bought an off the shoulder top for a wedding in Somerset. Wore it once and then didn’t wear it again for two years because my sister saw me in the church carpark before the ceremony and said “You look like you’re wearing a shelf”. Not wide. A shelf. Which makes it worse, somehow, because whilst “wide” is at least an adjective that’s being applied to your body, a shelf is furniture.
The entire exchange haunted me.
I heard Nadia say that word every time I caught sight of my reflection after that. Literally every time. It dominated my vision so much that for two years I avoided every off the shoulder top in the land. Which sucks, because I actually bloody love the neckline. Love what it does to collarbones. Love how it makes a boring top feel special. But somewhere along the line that little section of my brain just filed anything remotely cut like that under “things that make you look stupidly wide” and I never took the time to challenge whether it was actually true or whether it was just that one badly fitted top and that one too honest sister of mine.
So I did some research. Asked some actual people who work in clothes what they thought. Not people making TikTok explainers in ring lights with whiteboards. Real people, trying my actual body on in actual shops, under the fluorescent greying lighting of changing room mirrors that make everyone look like dead chips. And do you know what the answer was? An answer that’s more frustrating than a simple yes or no. Because the answer is “it depends on the top” and I know that sounds like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth here but bear with me because the reasons why are actually fascinating and will explain exactly why my Somerset disaster was such a disaster yet an entirely different off the shoulder top I bought last spring is worn to dinner parties these days and strangers say nice things about it at Tesco.
Let’s backtrack a second though. Where does the idea even come from that it makes you look wider?
There’s method in the madness. Honest. I don’t think that. Going into making this people assumed it came from nowhere and that’s why I kept seeing it everywhere. But there’s a real reason why people think what they think and it’s so pervasive because it makes total sense on a very basic level.
A horizontal line across the widest part of your upper body (aka roughly where your shoulders and upper arms sit) immediately draws the eye sideways rather than creating that lengthening up-and-down effect. “Horizontal lines widen, vertical lines lengthen” has been shouted by fashion folk for as long as we’ve cared about outfit captions. And when you really pare it back, that’s true. It’s true of stripes. It’s true of a straight hemline. It’s objectively true of pretty much anything.
Throw an off the shoulder neckline on top of that and you’ve got a horizontal line right where your body is naturally widest by design. It’s meant to be there, otherwise it wouldn’t be off the shoulder. So the theory goes: Horizontal line. Sat right where you’re naturally widest. Therefore it widens. Case. Closed. Go home. Bin your tops.
Except that assumes “off the shoulder” is one, uniform look. Ships passing in the styling sea all wearing “Off The Shoulder Top” proudly on their name tag. The Somerset top had a stiff, chunky band that sat firmly across both my arms and shoulders, didn’t move as I moved and had about as much give as your garden shed doors. It did not contour my body, it created a straight line over my body. A line that my body is not naturally. My shoulders are not, naturally, one straight line. Nobody’s are. So that top was fighting against my shape, not embracing it and therefore created exactly what Nadia saw in less than four seconds; A shelf.
The one I bought last spring, which was loved so much I bought it in three colours; comfortable awareness money can buy. Has a thin elasticated edge that stretches slightly when I move, sits lower on one shoulder than the other when I lean forwards (again, natural movement) and is made from a jersey fabric that skims rather than a stiff cotton that wouldn’t shift if your body gave up on you. Same neckline. Completely different top. So much difference colleagues have complimented it. My colleague Ffion, who has never once in three years sat opposite me at a desk said anything about what I’m wearing, sent me a quick “Oh that’s a good top” message on a Tuesday. For her, that’s praise.
The horizontal line theory isn’t wrong, it’s just blanket applied to a style that covers a huge variety of shapes, sizes and most importantly, fabrics.
Does it sit properly on your shoulders?
This is the bit I didn’t truly understand until I tried about six off the shoulders in one sweaty weekend afternoon. Dragging my mate Osei round Topshop, New Look and Affleck & Simmons because he “offerred” to help me carry bags and had spent the entirety of top three silently judging me on his phone before top four. It’s not actually the neckline itself that does the widening. It’s everything ABOVE it.
Bear with me, I’m getting to the clever bit, I swear. If you go into any shop right now and try on an off the shoulder top that has either boning or a firm elasticated band around the base, it will almost certainly sit slightly away from your actual shoulder, probably about an inch or two. That creates a gap, a gap between skin and fabric. See that gap. It’s what your eye focuses on first before it actually reads the top itself. That gap is a horizontal line that bisects your frame rather than hugs it. It’s the difference between framing a photo and getting the size of mount board exactly right and buying an oversized one by mistake that just hangs off the picture. You don’t look wider because of the top, you look wider because of the mount board around it.
Off shoulder tops that work on me sit flush. Really sit flush against my body and curve down from my neck rather than stopping inches away and calling it a day. They don’t create that gap. So much so that Osei actually cared enough to look up from Candy Crush when I was wearing one to say “that one’s better, the last one made your arms look like they started from different places.” Word vomited by someone who has about as much interest in my outfit choices as possible and yet was actually bang on about what the structured ones do wrong.
I can’t stress this enough once I started looking for it instead of judging on neckline style alone. Tried on twelve tops that day. Counted them because Osei was making me for some reason. 50% created that gap. Automatically looked like I was wearing a wider version of myself. The other half sat flush and not one of them made me look badly proportioned. In fact, some of them actually made my shoulders look better than they naturally do. Something I didn’t think was POSSIBLE considering I’d written the whole thing off based on one top.
Neckline finishes matter way more than we think they do.
It’s why my Falmouth favourite works and the Somerset one doesn’t. The finished edge on my go to forgive-all sins top is a thin elasticated band that stretches slightly when I move. The Somerset “shelf” has a stiff band of fabric that doesn’t move when I move. One hugs, one hangs. It makes all the difference. Which means that now, when I see “off the shoulder” written on a potential top I ask myself this; Is the fabric heavy enough to skim my shoulders without gaping? Does it cling where it’s supposed to and move with me, or is it going to fight my shape at every step? Trust me, you can really tell when a top fights you.
Sleeve length matters more than I expected too. A short sleeve that hits mid bicep or so counteracts that wide shoulder line because your eye now has another horizontal line lower down to draw towards. That stops the top of your shoulder being the widest part of you that people see when they look at you. A long bell sleeve does the opposite, of course. Puffs right out where your shoulders already do and that combination is the only one that’s failed me twice so far. Aunt Denise wasn’t wrong when she spotted me wearing a flowy sleeved version at my cousin’s christening Church. “You’ve gone very Tudor dear” – She was right, I had.
I still won’t wear this one, ok?
But y’know what? I still have one that I know, deep down, doesn’t work on me. And I’m not going to lie about it and pretend I’ve learned enough from my own research to love it. It’s a black one. Structured. Wide elasticated band. One I bought despite all of the lessons I’ve told you and swore at myself mentally every time I looked in the mirror wearing it. It does exactly what I’ve just spent several thousand words telling you not to do. That goddamn gap, dude. I STILL have the gap.
It lives in my wardrobe now. Unloved and mocked by me every time I open the closet. But the general category of OFF THE SHOULDERS does not deserve to be written off because of one bad match.
Mine lived in exile for two years because of a photo at a wedding (We weren’t even married!) and some misguided advice from my sister. If I’d known better I’d have given it more of a chance. So should you.
PS You’re looking great for noticing in the first place. Clothes are supposed to make us feel good. If one isn’t working, move it on and try another. There are enough “shelves” out there you’ll find something that fits YOU. I promise.
