If you are a petite woman with the pear shaped body, you have quite unique features. A typical pear shape has smaller bust, narrow shoulders, wider hips and thighs, which typically come across as bottom heavy. In the meantime, because you are also petite, these features can look more obvious on your short frame. The key to dress a petite pear is to focus on creating a long line to elongate your legs, while directing attention away from your bottom half.
In this detailed guide, we will walk you through everything you need to know to flatter your unique body shape.
TOPS
Off-the-Shoulder
One of the key points of styling your petite pear-shaped body is to bring more prominence to your upper half, especially because your lower half is relatively larger. To draw the eyes up and enhance the appearance of your narrow shoulders, try wearing off-the-shoulder tops.
Off-the-shoulder tops open up a generous space on your upper half by exposing your entire shoulder line, neck, and collarbones and therefore visually elongating this region. As this particular design is open and quite eye-catching, you’ll be drawing attention upwards to bring more prominence to your decolletage and shift attention away from your wider hips.
Shoulder Pads
Wearing tops with shoulder pads will increasingly add volume to your shoulders, which is something your petite pear body shape really needs. This additional structure will help make your shoulder line appear wider and more proportionate to the hips and visually create balance in your overall silhouette.
Another style benefit that many of us tend to overlook when it comes to shoulder pads is the fact that they can also help elongate your neck by giving your shoulder line a proper lift, especially when it also features a flattering open neckline. This can be particularly advantageous for you as a petite girl because it adds a touch of verticality to your upper body, making you appear taller and more elongated.
Boat Neck
If you’d like to extend the width of your shoulders without baring too much skin or incorporating any bulky detail, you are definitely going to love the sophistication of boat neck tops. A Boat neck (which is also called the Sabrina neckline), is a wide, horizontal neckline that runs from shoulder to shoulder, and this particular neckline cut that resembles the shape of a boat creates a gentle curve across the front of the chest.
Boat neck tops efficiently broaden the visual length of the shoulders to give you the illusion of a more balanced upper body. This visually counterbalances your relatively wider hips to enhance your overall proportions.
Flutter Sleeves
If you prefer a bit of arm coverage without the restrictive nature of long sleeves, flutter sleeves offer a flattering compromise by giving you some coverage and at the same time a boost of prominence on your narrower upper half.
As a petite pear-shaped woman, you’d want your upper half to be more pronounced in order to catch up with the depth of your wider lower half and you can do so without resorting to bulky details. This is why the delicate appearance of flutter sleeves can be very helpful as they draw the eyes upwards, away from the hip area.
JEANS
Dark Wash High-Rise
Being someone who’s petite and pear-shaped, you’ll need to tick two boxes on your style checklist: Elongate your legs and slim down your wider lower body. Dark wash high-rise jeans can do both as they feature a waistband that sits slightly above the natural waist to create the illusion of longer legs, while the dark wash will give your lower body a slimmer look.
These style benefits brought by dark wash high-rise jeans help balance your petite pear body shape proportions by making the lower body appear more in harmony with the upper body. In addition to this, the higher waistband also brings more shape to your defined waist, making the transition curve between your waist and hips quite distinctive.
Wide Leg
You may feel skeptical about wearing wide-leg jeans as you may feel like you may be adding more width to your lower body, but that’s really not the case as the structure of this type of jeans can actually use the wider leg room to work with your proportions. The wider leg shape efficiently accommodates your thicker hips and thighs to provide you comfort and ease of movement.
Also, since this wide leg shape continues to the ankle, the additional volume seamlessly camouflages the visual weight you have on your lower half. It also creates an illusion of longer and leaner legs that lead to a more harmonious balance between your upper and lower body.
Curvy Fit
Pear-shaped beauties may constantly struggle with the natural imbalance in their figure and shopping for jeans can also present its own challenges in terms of the waistband fit. Since your upper body is relatively smaller than your bottom half, the size difference between your narrow waist and wide hips can be quite significant and this can raise the issue of gaping.
Curvy-fit jeans can be highly beneficial for your petite pear-shaped body because of the fact that they feature a design that’s tailored to accommodate your curves. Apart from addressing the issue of gaping, its structure also contributes to giving your lower body a more proportional look.
PANTS
Classic Straight Leg
Going for simple and minimal silhouettes is always a good choice for pear-shaped ladies who wish to downplay their bottom-heavy figure. One great choice for your bottom wardrobe piece is a pair of classic straight-leg pants, which you can significantly benefit from because of its consistent width from your hips down to your ankles.
This consistent width effectively helps create a harmonious line from the hips to the ankles, giving you a more elongated and well-balanced stature. This particular style is not just timeless and versatile, but also visually beneficial to work around the uneven proportions your petite pear body shape naturally has.
Dark-colored Bootcut
The combination of dark colors and the bootcut style can both work in cooperation to deal with your problem areas, such as the natural imbalance you have between your upper and lower body. The dark colors have a slimming effect that can tone down your wider hips and thicker thighs and the additional volume from the flare can balance out the size discrepancy between your upper and lower body.
In addition to this, this particular design feature draws attention away from your bottom-heavy frame, which is your more pronounced hips and thighs. This is also a good way if you’d like to shift the gaze to your footwear as this can further enhance the elongating effect of the pants.
Pleated Pants with Pinstripes
Vertical patterns such as pinstripes can be very helpful if you are looking into elevating your height to a few more inches. To further enhance your height, pleated pants with pinstripes can easily give this visual effect for they draw the eyes up and down to stretch out your figure.
Additionally, the pleats add subtle volume to efficiently accommodate your wide hips and thighs and not restrict your movements. The visual coordination of the pleats and the pinstripes work in complete synergy to create an uninterrupted vertical line that makes you appear taller, slimmer, and more balanced.
DRESSES
Flowy X-Line
The X-Line silhouette features a very balanced look that makes the shoulders and hips more pleasingly symmetrical, most particularly in terms of width. This X-Line silhouette also has a very distinctive feature which is its ability to comfortably cinch the waist to make sure that the definition of your waist is clearly distinguished.
To have your X-Line dress in a flowy type of fabric, the dress will softly drape over your hips and thighs. This will help minimize the emphasis on your heavier lower body while also accentuating the waist, which is typically the narrowest part of your pear-shaped frame.
Tailored Coat Dress
A coat dress is typically made from structured fabric tailored with neat seams and strategic darts to give you a bespoke-like fit. The structured design of a tailored coat dress, along with its lapels and button-down front details, helps produce a vertical line that effectively elongates your frame.
It also cinches at the waist, which is something that instantly brings your upper and lower body ratio in balanced proportion. Due to the waist cinch and strategically placed seams, the dress falls into an A-Line flare that allows the dress to flawlessly drape over the hips and thighs to camouflage this heavier area.
This can be very advantageous for petite pear-shaped women who may want to downplay their lower body weight.
Empire Waist
Empire waist dresses can be a very helpful and practical choice, especially for petite women who are hoping to add a few more inches of height to their frame. The elevated waistline of empire waist dresses visually elongates the lower half, hence making the legs appear longer, and leaner, and the overall silhouette more balanced.
In addition to these visually lengthening aspects, the flowy nature of empire waist dresses can also gently drape over the hips and thighs to conceal the heaviness in your lower body. This flowy drape and structure will de-emphasize your lower body to make your frame look more proportionate.
Puff Sleeve
As a petite pear-shaped girl, you’ll need a bit of an extra boost of volume on your narrow shoulders and this is exactly what puff sleeves can do. Wearing a puff sleeve dress gives your ensemble a dainty touch while also visually enhancing your less pronounced upper half.
Puff sleeves add volume and structure to your shoulders, and therefore draw attention upward and away from the hips and thighs to balance your proportions. By accentuating the shoulders and upper arms, the puff sleeve detail of your dress diverts attention from your heavier lower body.
SKIRTS
Straight Cut Midi
What’s great about a straight-cut skirt is that its even width from the waist to the hemline can give you a balanced look by softly camouflaging your heavier bottom half. Also, skirts that expose enough portion of your legs, such as those that fall below the knee and above the ankle, are deemed flattering for your petite frame because they elongate the legs and create the illusion of height, making your petite frame appear taller and more proportionate overall.
Asymmetrical Hemline
Wearing skirts with asymmetrical hemlines can be a very smart choice for flattering your petite pear shapes as they feature a design wherein the uneven hem falls on the slimmer part of your lower legs, effectively drawing attention away from the bottom-heavy figure. This particular effect creates a visually elongated silhouette where the visual length of your legs is extended.
Just remember that when choosing such skirts, it’s crucial to opt for the right length that suits your petite frame perfectly. Not too short, as it may disrupt the desired effect, and not too long, as it could overwhelm your stature.
OUTERWEAR
Cropped Denim
A cropped denim jacket works wonders for your petite pear body shape by leading the gaze upward to divert attention away from the wider hips and thighs you have. The structured nature of denim helps bring more depth to your upper body while also significantly minimizing any concerns about the lower body.
Schoolboy
The schoolboy blazer’s tailored structure and fitted waist create a defined silhouette to further accentuate your waistline. This also helps neutralize your proportions and draw attention to the upper body, creating a more visually pleasing look.
Also, the blazer’s structured shoulders, lapel collars, and single-row button detail are beneficial for pear-shaped women. This creates a more delightful balance between your narrow shoulders and wide hips.
Wrap Coat
Wrap coats are very versatile and easy to pull off, that’s why I keep on telling everyone to make sure they have wardrobe pieces in a wrap silhouette. For petite pear-shaped girls out there, you will significantly benefit from the figure-flattering aspects of wrap coats because of how they bring structure and volume to areas where they are needed.
It’s a design that allows you to have a customizable fit around the waist to accentuate the narrowest part of your gorgeous body frame. This waist tie creates a more defined waistline, enhancing the proper balance of your figure overall.
