Your beautiful pear body shape is characterized by a smaller upper half and a wider bottom half, which makes the size difference between the two quite noticeable. As a pear-shaped girl, you have shoulders that are relatively narrower than your hips and your breasts are more likely smaller in size and prominence as well.
As for your midsection and your lower body, you have a very distinct waistline curve thanks to your wide and voluptuous hips. The width of your hips is noticeably wider in comparison to your narrow shoulders so there is a natural visual imbalance in your overall frame.
But don’t worry too much about this visual imbalance between your upper and lower body because there are a number of styling tricks you can easily do to neutralize your body proportions! By going by these dressing rules, you’ll easily bring better visual proportions to your pear frame.
Wear Horizontal Necklines
One of the key goals in styling a pear-shaped figure is to enhance the prominence of your narrow shoulders. You can efficiently do this by wearing tops and dresses that feature horizontal necklines as they have the ability to visually expand the appearance of your shoulders and bring prominence to your top half.
Two of the best examples of horizontal necklines are the boat neck (also known as the Sabrina neckline) and off-the-shoulder. These two can work wonders in shifting the focus on your collarbone and shoulder line, while the horizontal line of these necklines creates the illusion of broader shoulders.
Due to this particular structure and neckline opening, they draw attention away from your wider hips and therefore neutralize the overall balance from your top to bottom. The Boat Neck (Sabrina) is perfect for pear shapes who would love modest coverage without overwhelming your frame, while off-the-shoulder necklines would work wonderfully for those who are looking to showcase a bigger portion of their decolletage.
Look for Structured Shoulders
Another way to enhance the proportions of your less pronounced upper body is to always opt for clothing pieces that feature structured shoulders. Basically, structured shoulders involve the use of strategic seams, firm fabric, and streamlined darts that hold the shape of the entire shoulder line to add depth and broadness to your upper body.
By creating the illusion of broader shoulders, you are also balancing out your hips which are quite wider and curvier in comparison to the rest of your upper body. This gives you a more symmetrical frame while also detracting attention from your bottom-heavy area.
You will usually find structured shoulders in tailored pieces such as blazers, jackets, or formal to semi-formal blouses. To make sure you are getting the best of its visual benefits, make sure that you have the right fit and avoid those that have a slouchy fit.
Accentuate your Waistline
One of your pear body shape’s best features would be your curvy and well-defined waistline. Because of the remarkable size difference between your midsection area and wide hips, the transition curves on the sides of your waist are extremely apparent.
Since your defined waistline is one of your pear figure’s best assets, you have to always keep it accentuated to ensure that your feminine curves are always taking the spotlight! You can always accentuate your waistline by going for clothing silhouettes and details that efficiently cinch the waist.
Look for clothes that have neat waist seams, darts, or a self-tie belt as these can help make the curves of your waist very noticeable. Doing so will give you a silhouette that’s pretty much similar to the highly coveted hourglass figure, which is more balanced overall.
Try X-Line Dresses
X-Line dresses definitely deserve a dedicated space in every pear-shaped girl’s wardrobe! Its equally balanced shoulder line and hemline can easily address your concerns about the natural imbalance of your figure.
An X-Line dress has a fitted bodice and typically has drapey sleeves that create just the right amount of volume on your upper body to balance out your wider bottom half. Its even horizontal shoulder line is also very helpful in creating more depth and prominence to your upper half.
Just like the “X” shape, this silhouette features a distinct waist cinch at the center, which leads to the gentle flaring of the skirt towards the hem. This gently camouflages your big hips and thighs without overwhelming the natural curves of your pear body shape naturally has.
Wear Dark-Colored Bottoms
Pear-shaped ladies are generally bottom-heavy because of the wideness of the hips and the thickness of the thighs as well. This further contributes to the imbalance that your figure has so it is much better to downplay this region of your lower body to achieve a more proportionate balance between your upper and lower body.
We all know that dark colors do an exceptional job of creating the illusion of slimness and leanness due to their ability to absorb light and visually compress your figure. This can be particularly helpful in toning down the heavy appearance of your hips and thighs and therefore make them look more balanced with your upper body.
Since dark colors naturally don’t grab attention, they help diminish the prominence of your lower body by also shifting the attention towards your upper body instead, especially if you go for tops in brighter hues. This can also camouflage any unnecessary bulges that may be present around your midsection area and lower body.
Wear Wide-leg Jeans/Pants
It’s a common misconception that wide-leg structures for jeans and pants are bulkier and heavier to look at – but that is so not true! Due to their streamlined appearance and consistent width from hips to ankles, wide-leg jeans and pants create a sense of balance and proportion.
They also have slimming properties that can tone down the thickness of your hips and thighs without the additional volume or bulk. This is effectively achieved by giving your legs just the right amount of volume to balance out the hips and even out the distribution of your visual weight.
They also help elongate your frame to give you a taller and more symmetrical appearance. On top of its visual style benefits, you can find immense comfort with wide-leg jeans and pants and this can be especially helpful for pear shapes who may struggle with constricting bottoms due to their wide hips, thick thighs, and big buttocks.
Avoid Tier Dresses
The bulky nature of tier dresses can greatly overwhelm your pear-shaped figure as it adds a significant amount of volume where it’s not needed at all – your wide hips and thick thighs! As I keep on reiterating, your pear body shape is naturally unbalanced because of your wider hips so that’s why this is the area you need to subdue.
The overlapping ruffled fabrics of tier dresses will also overwhelm the appearance of your less pronounced upper body. If you’d like to bring better visual balance to your frame, add more details to your upper half and keep things muted on your bottom half.
Avoid Boxy Tops
Many pear-shaped ladies would often resort to wearing boxy tops in hopes of giving their smaller upper body a boost of volume. However, wearing boxy tops is not the best way to do it at all because its square and straight silhouette will only make you look shapeless.
It’s very important for pear body shapes to accentuate their curves, most particularly the waistline, to ensure balance and enhancement of your feminine features. So by going for boxy tops, you are instantly contradicting this goal as this type of silhouette doesn’t have the ability to conform to your curves.
Due to the voluminous and squarish nature of boxy tops, you will end up hiding your best features and overwhelming your less prominent areas even more (such as your shoulders and bust line). Instead of boxy tops, wear those that embrace your curves in a subtle way, such as by using strategically placed darts, neat seams, and a waist cinch.
Avoid Tight-Fitting Tops
Tight-fitting tops will compress the appearance of your smaller upper body even more, resulting in drawing more emphasis to your wider hips. Tops that cling too close to your body will make the significant size difference between your smaller top half and larger bottom halfway more obvious.
This leads to an apparent disproportion within your figure as tight-fitting tops can further exaggerate the lack of prominence of your upper half. Tight-fitting tops are very constricting and also don’t have much structure as they are typically made from very stretchy fabrics that conform very closely to your body.
If you like something that’s form-fitting to enhance your curves, you can go for tops that cinch at the waist as a great style alternative. Or you can also opt for those with a fitted bodice but have subtle details or fabric flounces to create more volume on your upper half, specifically your bust line.
Avoid Hip Embellishments
The last thing you will ever want for your wide hips is more bulk or volume. Having a pear-shaped body means that your hip area is the widest part of your body so it’s quite ideal to downplay this area to bring balance and pleasing proportions to your figure.
Clothing pieces that feature hip embellishments will immediately overwhelm your figure, ignoring the rest of your body and having the attention solely on your heavy hips. Embellishments such as beadwork, buttons, and ruffles, should be something you have to avoid when they are placed along the hip line or the sides of the hips.
To keep your pear frame beautifully balanced and more put together, keep things minimal and muted around your hip area. Its voluptuous and generous curves are already a star on their own, so there’s definitely no need to add more details or embellishments to amplify your hips at all!
Avoid Skinny Fit Jeans or Pants
Wearing skinny fit bottoms can be a fashion concern for pear body shapes as well because of the fact that they can further emphasize the size contrast between your narrow upper body and wider lower body. By wearing skinny jeans or pants together with an unflattering top, they will only make your frame more unflattering and imbalanced.
Since you have bigger hips and thighs, they are already attention-grabbing even without a specific detail to highlight them so wearing skinny-fit jeans or pants will make this heavier region of your body way more noticeable. This will completely blur out the prominence of your upper body, resulting in a visually disproportionate appearance.
In addition to their visual effect, skinny jeans and pants may also not give your hips, rear, and legs enough room to be comfortable because of their restricting nature. For someone who has big hips and thighs, just like most pear body shapes, leg shape structures that offer more space and width will most likely give you better ease and comfort.
Favor Shoulder Pads
Shoulder pads in dresses, tops, blazers, and jackets will always be a very stylishly beneficial fashion option for pear body shapes. Not only are shoulder pads a vintage classic detail, but they are also very flattering in terms of bringing prominence to your narrow shoulders.
The sizes and thickness of shoulder pads can vary depending on how much definition and volume you would like your shoulder line to have. Ideally, they should be enough to look symmetrical with the width of your hips for a more balanced overall frame.
Additionally, pear-shaped ladies tend to look a bit slouchy due to their narrow shoulders and sloped shoulder edges. Adding shoulder pads to your ensemble can give you a nice posture boost to make your outfit look more structured and your frame look more sophisticated!
