Half and Half

One of the earliest Style Tips I shared in my blog was "Never wear a shirt that is the same length as your skirt. It will make you look short." Replace the "shirt" and "skirt" with the more generic "top" and "bottoms," and you have an all-purpose rule that you can live by!

And yet, I'm blatantly breaking that rule today...because, I've found a new tip that supersedes this rule and completely changes the game! But before I reveal it, a story.

Yesterday, I didn't have much time to plan today's outfit. I was out celebrating my boyfriend's birthday and running errands for most of the day. By the time I got home, I was too tired to do anything more than grab a shirt and some pants out of my closet and crawl into bed.

But when I woke up in the morning, I realized my mistake. I'd chosen a long pair of pants that I could only wear with high heels. After walking around all day on my wedge boots on Friday, and spending much of Sunday in 5-inch stilettos, my metatarsal bones were barking! There was no way I was wearing anything but flats today!

Unfortunately, the only pair of trousers that both matched the shirt, and was short enough to wear with flats, was my trusty old cigarette pants...which are exactly the same length as the shirt! Code violation!

What to do, what to do? Well, the obvious solution was to just wear the combo anyway and stop worrying about it. So I'd spend a day at work looking slightly dumpy. Worse things have happened.

But fortunately, a better answer occurred to me. I'd use my shoes to visually elongate my legs! Normally, I do this by putting on a pair of high heels, but since heels were off the table for today, I'd have to apply a couple of useful principles, which I'm now sharing as a When your shoes are the same color as your pants, they will visually continue the line of your legs and make them look longer. In a similar vein, shoes with a pointed toe will make your foot look longer. Combine the two and you will have legs for days!

I've historically waffled on the topic of pointed-toe shoes. On the one hand, they do look more elegant than round or square toes. On the other hand, they pinch, and also make your feet look longer, which is usually not desirable. I eventually did decide to buy some this year, which was fortunate, because sometimes (like when you are wearing awkwardly short pants), longer feet is just what your look needs!