The pear shaped body has nice curves, but can also come across as bottom heavy because of your wider hips and thighs. It is important to find the right shoe styles that can enhance your best features, elongate your legs, and work around the natural imbalances. In this comprehensive guide, we will take a close look at your body traits, and walk you through all the shoe styles most suitable for your unique body type.
Characteristics
- You’ve got a longer rise. This means that you have a long waist and your torso may appear longer than women of your height.
- Your legs may appear shorter. Just as previously mentioned, the lengthier distance between your waist and crotch will cause your legs to look somewhat shorter.
- You have very wide hips and thick thighs. They are way more prominent compared to your smaller upper body, which results in a bottom-heavy figure.
- Pear shapes have a nicely defined waist. Having a narrow waist and wide hips creates a significantly curved line along the waist, which makes your figure look more defined and feminine.
- Your heavier bottom half might make you look stubby. You gain some extra weight in your hips, thighs, and buttocks and your longer rise may also contribute to making your frame appear stubby.
Now that we have covered the specific attributes of your pear figure, here are the best shoe styles to bring out the best of your natural body shape.
Nude Heels
Nude heels are deemed a foolproof style choice for pear shapes due to their visually flattering effect, most specifically on your legs. As they help elongate your frame, you can work around your proportions and create a more balanced silhouette.
In addition to this, nude heels that closely match your skin tone will help create the illusion of longer legs. This additional visual height and length can help efficiently balance out your wider hips and thighs, making the lower body appear slimmer and more proportionate to your less prominent upper body.
When you wear nude heels that seamlessly match your skin tone, there is less contrast between your legs and the shoes and therefore keep your visual line uninterrupted from your legs to your feet. This continuity of color can make your legs appear longer and create a more harmonious overall look.
Open-Toe Pumps
Just like what I mentioned earlier, pear shapes typically have a longer rise and this therefore causes a longer-looking torso and shorter legs. This is where a height-elevating pair of open-toe wedges can come into play.
Wedge shoes, particularly those with a substantial heel height, can effortlessly create the appearance of leaner and more elongated legs. This added height and lift contribute to elongating the legs and making them look slimmer and more balanced with your wider lower body.
Additionally, the open-toe design can also add visual interest to your lower body and steer the focus away from your larger hips and thighs.
Slingback Pumps
If you love the style of closed-toe pumps but don’t really like how restricting fully-closed pumps are, you can always opt for slingback pumps. Not only do they offer enough support for your feet, but they also have visual benefits to enhance your shape and elongate your legs.
Slingback pumps typically have an open back, which exposes your ankles. The strap that goes behind your ankles prevents the creation of a visual break on your legs and therefore leaves the straight vertical line of your legs unbroken.
Apart from elongating your legs, the strap across the back of the heel can have a slimming effect on your lower legs as well. This can contribute to a more streamlined appearance and help balance out the proportions of a pear-shaped body.
Neutral-colored Heels
Due to the fact that you have narrower shoulders and a smaller bust size compared to wider hips and thighs, you may need a bit of more volume on your ankles and feet areas. Chunky heels have a substantial and wide base that can help with additional volume and visual weight to the lower part of the body and therefore create balance.
The chunky design of these heels can also give your pear frame the appearance of longer legs. The added height, combined with the broader base, elongates the lower body and makes it look more proportional to the upper body, as well as visually minimizes the discrepancy between the hips and thighs.
Neutral-colored heels, such as beige, nude, taupe, or soft shades of brown will help produce a continuous line from the legs to your feet. This color continuity can make the legs appear longer and slimmer, contributing to a more balanced frame.
Over-the-Knee Boots
And for the colder seasons, you can opt for something very flattering for your pear figure such as a classy pair of over-the-knee boots. They are cozy and comfortable, but most of all, quite visually harmonious for your pear body shape features.
Over-the-knee boots provide ample coverage that creates a continuous line from the thighs down to the feet, and therefore visually elongate the legs for a more balanced appearance. The boots cover a significant portion of the leg, and this can effectively help downplay the heavier and wider appearance of the hip and thigh area, resulting in a more proportionate look.
In addition to these style benefits, over-the-knee boots extend higher up the leg, to counteract the appearance of stubby legs. This added height can help balance the proportions by making the lower body appear longer and more in line with the upper body.
Pointed Toe Pumps
Pointed-toe pumps create the illusion of longer legs by extending the visual line of your foot. This apparent elongating effect helps balance the proportions of your pear figure by making the lower body appear longer and more in line with your longer rise.
In addition, the tapered and elongated shape of pointed-toe pumps can give the feet a more slender appearance to further enhance and elevate your frame.
Almond Toe Heels
It’s not hard to fall in love with the edgy and modern vibe of almond toe heels! Their unique shape can efficiently draw just the right amount of attention to your footwear to neutralize the appearance of your wider hips and thicker thighs.
This redirection of focus can contribute to a more balanced visual presentation which pear shapes really need. The almond shape of the toe can help visually align with your hips to give your frame a balanced and cohesive appearance.
Plain White Trainers
Plain white trainers can indeed be a flattering and versatile choice for your pear beauties out there because of their minimalist look! White trainers are quite simple and so they don’t compete with the rest of your outfit.
This neutrality balances out your frame and allows the gaze to be evenly distributed throughout your figure. It also creates a continuous line on your legs by not creating a contrasting horizontal break that can shorten the appearance of your frame.
Beige Loafers
Beige is one of the many neutral shades that can blend seamlessly with various outfits, as well as your natural complexion. When wearing beige loafers, there’s no strong contrast that could draw unnecessary attention to the lower body and this continuity of color from the feet to the legs can create a visually elongated appearance.
Loafers typically have a sleek and simple design, which makes them pretty classy and versatile. The absence of excessive embellishments or bold details allows the focus to remain on the overall outfit rather than just your feet.
Avoid Calf-Length Boots
Now let’s talk about what you have to avoid wearing, starting with calf-length boots. They often hit right at the widest part of the calf muscles and will therefore draw attention to this area, disrupting the balance of your frame.
They can also visually cut off the legs at a point that might not be the most flattering for your figure, especially when your goal is to keep your legs elongated. This could make the legs appear shorter and potentially less balanced with the upper body.
Avoid Bright-Colored Platforms
First of all, bright-colored platforms can easily draw a lot of attention due to their vibrant hues. And so if you’re aiming to create a balanced and proportionate silhouette, these platforms might emphasize your bottom-heavy figure even more.
Since bright colors come in stark contrast with your natural skin tone, this can cause a harsh horizontal break on your legs and therefore make you look shorter. This awkward cut will only further emphasize the natural imbalance your pear figure has.
If you’re really keen on experimenting with colors, you can still opt for bright colors but choose those that don’t cut off at the ankles or calf.
Avoid Chunky Shoes
A bit of volume boost on the lower part of your legs can help balance out your wider hips and thicker thighs, that’s for sure. However, you wouldn’t want to go overboard with this, otherwise, you’ll only make your bottom-heavy figure look even heavier.
Extremely chunky shoes, most particularly those with exaggerated platforms or overly bulky designs, can draw unnecessary attention to the lower part of your body. This could further accentuate the width of your hips and thighs, which may not be a very desirable effect for those aiming to create a more balanced silhouette.
Also, wearing extremely chunky shoes can create a stark contrast between the lower body and the upper body, which can make the lower body appear larger in comparison.
