Selecting a Prom Dress for Rectangle Body Types

Linda Hahn: I am Linda Hahn. I am the owner of L H boutique in Laguna Beach and I am showing you how to pick the perfect prom dress.Nikki is an example of what we call a rectangular body. This means that her body is pretty much straight up and down shoulders and hips are the same width. What you want to do with this type of body is you want to add curves. You want to add softness, we have done that in this dress by picking a dress that has a belt that is a very much of a statement belt therefore, drawing your eye inward you can also blouse the dress underneath by pulling it up and giving it a little shape and it gives her some curves where there might not be any. You also can always use this type of a fabric, a soft floaty fabric. If you have a very straight body you want to avoid angular, you want to avoid vertical stripes, you want to enhance, put the cross stripes like we have done here. You also want to avoid very severe structured fabrics because they tend to look stiff and what we are trying to do with this body type is add those, the softness.A chiffon will do that, the shine of the satin add softness, the beautiful curve of this neckline and the cutting in of the shoulders, the black highlighting against the cream, all of these things join together to give you a very soft, soft look. If you turn around on this dress it has a very interesting back that continues to add shape. This look here actually almost mimics the idea of the feminine figure. So it gives you a little bit more shape and again, it's mimicked here by going into the belt.What you want to avoid if you have this type of body is again, the very structured fabrics, anything with a vertical stripe and what you want to look for is things that will give you some curves. You also want to avoid very blousy, unstructured dresses because they will tend to make you get lost and all you will see is dress. If you are a delicate, small boned person you want to wear the dress and not have the dress wear you. With a dress that has a neckline that is this interesting already, you really don't want to fool with it by putting any kind of jewelry that would hang down or even in the neckline.So what you want to do is a simple pair of earrings, in this case we are bringing out the black and maybe a bangle. Very simple; very simple black shoes. As far as the hair goes, with a dress like this you are probably going to want to put your hair up simply because it allows you to see the gorgeous back and it elongates the neck and gives you this nice feminine look. If you want to wear your hair down again, to make a straighter body look curvier you might want to do big voluminous curls so that it would add more softness.Next, I'll discuss great dresses for the hourglass body type.