The apple-shaped women have beautiful curves and slender legs, but may also be frustrated with midriffs. The key to beautifully flaunting your formal wear dress is to know how to work around your apple body shape’s flaws and bring out your best features. Here are the key guidelines you can review to be able to come up with the best formal wear that suits you.
MAIN CONSIDERATION
- Shapely and large bust size. This is one of your most noticeable features so you have to keep this region enhanced, not overwhelmed.
- Broad and prominent shoulder line. They are relatively wider compared to your hips, which also makes the definition of your upper body way more dominant.
- Thick midsection area. You tend to gain more weight in your tummy area, which also leads to the blurring of your torso’s curves.
- No waist definition. You lack waist definition and side curvatures, as one of the results of a heavier midsection area.
- Narrow and undefined hips. The transition from your waist to hips is less distinctive because they are almost of the same width and size.
- Slender and well-toned legs. You barely gain weight in your legs so they have always been slim and very well-tone – definitely one of an apple body shape’s best features!
NECKLINE
Sweetheart
Give your beautiful, rounded-shaped bust the recognition it deserves by going for a sweetheart neckline. The sweetheart neckline, just like what the name suggests, is a type of open neckline that has a shape similar to the top part of the heart.
The curves of this particular neckline gently trace along your well-shaped cleavage, which gives you the perfect opportunity to highlight your apple figure’s best feature. It provides decent coverage while the slight dip of the heart-shaped neckline creates a sense of symmetry right at the center of your frame to make you look more elongated and balanced.
V-Neck
Of course, V-neck formal wear dresses will always be a classic go-to choice for apple-shaped women because of how visually flattering it is in terms of keeping your frame well-balanced. The vertical line it creates draws the eyes toward the center of your body and therefore focuses on your broad shoulders and shapely bust, instead of your heavier midsection.
The V-neckline also visually elongates the torso to open up more space on your upper body and therefore even out the attention between your top and bottom region. As it slims down your upper body, your less prominent bottom half doesn’t become too overwhelmed with your top-heavy features.
Scoop
Just like the first two necklines I just mentioned, a scoop neckline also gives the same slimming and balancing effect due to the fact that it opens up space on the upper half of your body. The difference is that it has a softer and rounded shape to give your figure the illusion of more curves – something apple shapes usually lack.
Because it exposes a portion of your upper half, it efficiently draws attention to the neck and collarbones to give a visually appealing focal point that takes the focus away from your areas of concern.
Square
Square necklines also create flattering lines that can enhance the appearance of your upper half. Regardless of how open you’d like your square neckline to be, the sense of verticality that this particular neckline gives efficiently highlights your neck, collarbone, and bust line.
This visual effect also helps neutralize the lack of curves you have on your midsection and hips as the eyes will focus on your bust line more. The clean lines and geometric shape add structure to your upper body while also balancing your proportions.
Off-the-shoulder
If you’re really looking into showcasing your beautiful top half in full confidence, you can absolutely do so with formal wear dresses with off-the-shoulder styles! It allows you to expose your gorgeously broad shoulders as well as bring the gaze to your bust line as well.
This elegant neckline adds more femininity to your look and at the same time, creates the illusion of a longer and leaner torso in order to also reduce the focus on your thicker midsection.
FIT
Fitted at the Waist
As you may have already noticed whenever you look at the mirror, you can clearly see how there’s very little to almost no definition on your waist area – and that’s totally okay! It’s something a well-fitting formal wear can definitely fix.
Look for a formal wear dress that cinches at the waist to give you side curves that will make the transition from your waist to your hips flawless. This can be achieved by going for formal wear pieces that have a belt, waist tie, neat seams, or side darts.
Tummy Control
Formal wear dresses with built-in panels or strategic seaming details can be very helpful to apple-shaped women because of their ability to hold your heavier midsection. This prevents your midsection from bulging and therefore gives your figure a more flattering sculpt.
The compression it provides gives support to your midsection by flattening this area, creating a more streamlined silhouette.
SILHOUETTE
Fit and Flare
Fit and flare formal dresses are universally flattering because of how they feature a balanced silhouette from the shoulder line to the hem. If you’re in a hurry searching for something to wear at a formal event, this is the go-to type of dress for your apple figure.
The structure of a fit and flare dress embraces apple body shapes so well because it features a bodice with a fairly tailored fit that perfectly highlights your body’s best assets. It also cinches at the waist to give you definition and gently flares out from the waist down for an hourglass shape effect.
Ruched
Ruching is a sewing technique wherein the fabric is either gathered or pleated to create a stylish texture. This can be very helpful for apple body shapes trying to bring definition to their waist and conceal their midsection.
Try to look for formal wear dresses that feature ruching on the sides to help camouflage the extra weight you may have on your midsection area. This will trick the eyes that the stomach bulge is just due to the texture of the ruching.
In addition to this, it helps indent the sides of your waist to create the illusion of hourglass curves.
Peplum
The structure of peplum dresses gives your figure instant definition by creating the illusion of a defined waistline and more prominent hips. Its distinct characteristic, which is the short overskirt that flares from the waist to the hip bone, naturally adds volume to your narrow hips and therefore creates the illusion of curves.
Since you naturally lack waist definition, the optical illusion peplum formal wear dresses add just the right amount of volume to make the curved transition from your waist to your hips more noticeable.
Cutout
This can be a more sophisticated option if you’re looking for a sexy formal wear dress that can accompany you to your sultry night outs. Specifically, dresses with side cutouts on the waist area can help create a more distinct waist definition by exposing the skin on the sides to draw attention to the narrower area between your bust and hips.
The exposed skin from the cutout design can efficiently create a contrast between your skin and the fabric to visibly add depth and dimension to your frame.
DESIGN
Sheer Sleeves
Sheer sleeves can be a mesmerizing way to give your formal wear dress some coverage, but without overwhelming your broad shoulders and toned arms. If you go for sheer sleeves with fancy details such as mesh sparkles or intricate embroidery, you can manage to attract attention to your upper half, where your best features are.
This will also minimize the attention from your undefined waist, heavy midsection, and narrow hips.
Flared Sleeves
Flare sleeves add a touch of femininity and elegance to formal wear dresses but apart from this, they also do a great job at counterbalancing your figure’s shortcomings by attracting attention through the sense of movement they produce. This effectively detracts attention from the midsection and leads the gaze toward the arms and shoulders.
Satin Belt
It’s not always easy to find formal wear dresses that you can easily pair a belt with. But a satin belt can always be an elegant choice to give your figure its much-needed waist definition.
Apart from the fact that satin belts can offer a nice cinch at the waist, they are also quite dainty and simple, so they can give your frame a bit of a tweak without looking too obvious.
Vertical Embroidery
To make the visual weight of your upper and lower body more symmetrical and flattering, it’s also quite effective to elongate your figure for a taller and leaner frame. Vertical patterns, such as embroidery can help draw the eyes up and down to downplay your heavier midsection and make your upper half look more proportionate with your bottom half.
FABRIC
Comfort, stretch, draping, and structure are some of the important factors you need to look for when it comes to choosing the right fabric for your apple figure. Since you have to deal with a natural imbalance between your torso and lower half, structured fabrics that are able to hold some shape can be very beneficial.
Additionally, a comfortable amount of stretch can give your body a more forgiving fit and therefore camouflage the appearance of your heavier midsection area.
STYLES TO AVOID
Babydoll
Babydoll dresses feature a loose silhouette in which the waistline begins right under the bust. You may think that this is a good way to conceal your heavier midsection, but since it has an empire waist structure, it will only make your bust and shoulders look even bigger and broader.
The loose silhouette will blur the curves of your body even more and may emphasize the visual weight of your upper half. This will only overwhelm that smaller and less pronounced appearance of your lower body.
Bodycon
Wearing a bodycon dress is definitely a sexy way to showcase your natural curves. However, apple figures don’t really have much curves to begin with so wearing tight formal dresses can only highlight the fact that you lack definition, most particularly on your midsection and hip area.
High-neck
Since you’re dealing with a more likely top-heavy figure, you wouldn’t want to cramp up your upper body by covering up too much. When you go for high-neck formal wear dresses, you are restricting your prominent features by making your upper body look way bigger than your lower body.
Open necklines are more advisable for apple body shapes because it gives more space for your broad shoulders and big bust.
Ruffles on the upper half
Your apple figure already has enough volume on your upper half, so adding ruffles along your already prominent bustline will just make you look even heavier. These flounces of fabric will add a significant bulk to your broader upper half and completely overpower your narrower lower body.
The added volume can also make your shoulders, bust, waist, and hips almost symmetrical in width.
