I was digging through a drawer looking for a charging cable that actually works with my phone right now, rather than one of the four dead phones I’m apparently keeping as souvenirs, when my flatmate shuffled past me in a towel and said “wear the green one tonight, A line, you’ve got the shape for it.”I had not asked. I was not considering dresses. I was considering charging cables for phones I might still own and all of a sudden I’m getting lectured on what my body is “for” by a drunk person who is still wetting the hallway carpet.
And this is the bit that grinds my gears about the entire rule. The bit that shows up on every single “ dresses for your body shape ” article without ever being questioned, like it was written into some fashion tablet somewhere. Apparently if you have an hourglass figure A line dresses are suddenly the best option for you, full stop. I’ve repeated that sentence so many times I stopped noticing how dumb it actually is, which is really the issue because when I stopped and thought about why everyone says it, all the reasons fall apart way sooner than you’d expect from something that’s been treated like gospel for decades.
The waist bit is true! …kind of
Here’s the part about the rule that’s actually correct. An A line is going to flare out from around your ribcage or somewhere near the smallest part of your torso, so if you’ve got a waist it’s going to nip in at that point and then out again. That means if your waist is your favourite part of your own body, an A line is going to highlight it without any extra fuss, it’s essentially your body shape agreeing with the cut of the dress rather than fighting against it.
But to imply that an A line is always gonna make your whole body happy? I think that’s where the rule keeps getting thrown around like it’s true, when it isn’t, because your waist isn’t the only thing that makes you an hourglass. An hourglass shape is created by both your bust and your hips as well as your waist, and a lot of A lines assume you’ve got almost no bust at all because that bodice just skims down to a waistband and out. I bought one once from *leans in to whisper* New Look, cost me forty two quid, and on my body the bodice stretched across the front so much it totally ruined the whole “ this will enhance your natural hourglass figure ” spiel they’d written on the product page. My waist looked amazing. Everything else up top looked like someone had taped my boobs in sacrifice to the seamstress gods.
So when people say “ oh yeah A lines are great for hourglass figures!” what they really mean is “oh yeah, A lines are great for the waist portion of hourglass figures”, and they’re crossing their fingers about the boobs working out. Usually it doesn’t. Not unless there’s some serious structure to that bodice, like darts or princess seams actually doing the thing to shape it rather than just gathering at the waistband and deciding that’s good enough. I’ve tried on at least half a baker’s dozen of A lines over the years just because I like boobs and I want my dress to fit them well too, and I’d say three or four out of those actually did it right. That’s a really poor success rate for such a solidly stated rule.
The flare makes or breaks everything
The other piece of the puzzle that no one talks about quite as much is what your skirt does to your lower half, which in the case of hourglass figures already includes hip measurement. An A line means your skirt flares out from your waist, that’s the whole definition of the damn thing. It’s not clinging to your body like a pencil dress or even a slip dress would. Throw enough fabric into that lower half and it doesn’t matter how symmetrical your top half is, your outfit cares about your hips too, and if you’ve got curves there already then adding more volume right where you end could easily look like we’re emphasising them rather than complimenting. Sometimes that works! I think we can all agree that some people would look amazing in a max flare A line. But add enough fabric to those hips and it stops being “wow, look how curvy you are!” and starts being “ what did you wear here? I can’t see your clothes.”
This is where saying “ A lines!” as a catch-all solution to body shape falls down for me the hardest, because it skips right over how big a “ flare ” we’re talking about. An A line is literally every dress that flares at the waist from barely-visible to OH MY GOD SANDY you’re drowning in your own dress. The smaller that flare is, the more likely it is an A line will work for you as an hourglass. Flare that starts lower, closer to the knee, and stays gentle up top will more than likely enhance your natural curve because it complements without competing. But pick a maxi dress with enough fabric for a Saturn orbit and you’ve suddenly gone from enhancing that hourglass shape to covering it up entirely.
I learned that lesson the painful way thanks to my wedding last summer. After careful measurements I found an A line that worked really well in the top, fitted beautifully around my waist but still allowed me to breathe. Then I saw the skirt. Oh lord did I see the skirt. Full. Mock off-the-shoulder maxi skirt that practically required its own chair at the dinner table. My waist looked incredible. My hips looked like they were mid-question at an interview still mentally gathering their thoughts. My friend took a photo of me side-on and I didn’t even recognise the shape as my own, it looked like someone with a much smaller bottom half had loaned me theirs just for the night. It wasn’t that the dress didn’t work for bodies in general, there’s tons of lovely shapes that would have looked amazing in it. It didn’t work for my hourglass shape specifically because it demanded more fabric at my hips than my waist measurement actually allowed.
So…do A lines suit hourglass figures? Eh. Sometimes! But it’s not for the reason everyone thinks, of course your waist still fits into the cut of the dress, we’ve established that. It’s much more about the fit of the top and how crazy the bottom half gets that you’ll really know if an A line is for you or not. Wear that bad boy and you’ll drown any curve you personally have. Dial the volume back just a little and holy crap does it make those curves sing. There’s so many variables in both those areas that “oh A lines are great for you!” isn’t really helpful at all. Tell me to check the bodice and how much the skirt flares before I buy and I will not end up with a dress that hates my body, trust me. I’ve got the photo to prove it.
