“Reducing”—by no matter what method—is too often a snare and a delusion; for even if, after all your efforts, you do lose some weight, a little indiscretion in your clothes will make you look as stout as ever.

How to select clothes that are certain to make you look slender is the most important knowledge a modern woman can have. Surely it is the most important art in the whole field of fashion. And yet, many designers of clothes for stout women do not understand its very cardinal principles. Of course, they do design so-called “slenderizing stouts”—but you know, perhaps all too well, what they look like. Their long surplice effects and drab colors say as plainly as words, “I am designed for a stout” and nine times out of ten they simply call attention to your stoutness. Besides they are for matronly women—not for those who want to look young and smart. It seems practically impossible to get youthful and appropriate clothes for women who wear sizes over 38. Yet it may be only necessary to change a neckline or remove an ornament or alter the line of a sleeve in order to transform a “dumpy fat woman’s dress” into a model of slender grace and youthful charm.

The whole art rests upon a certain scientific principle known to artists and a few expert designers. It is called the Principle of Optical Illusion, by which things appear to the eye to be different than they really are. By understanding and properly using this principle, objects may be made to appear larger or smaller, taller or shorter. And by employing this principle in dress any woman can be made to look older or younger, shorter or taller, stouter or slenderer than she actually is.

For example, just as white shoes make large feet look much larger, so do certain lines and colors make a large figure look a great deal larger, while correct lines and colors and subtle touches give the effect of slenderness, youth and grace.

Every stout woman has, some time in her experience, come by chance upon a dress which seemed to make her look more slender and younger, and she has worn and worn that dress almost to shreds, hating to part with it because there was no telling when she would find another one to give that same effect.

But there is no reason why you should trust to chance in selecting becoming clothes. For if you know this simple yet all important principle of optical illusion, you can plan or make or select every item of your wardrobe with the certain knowledge that it will have a slenderizing effect on your appearance.

You can know beforehand that every dress, every coat, every hat, every garment you wear will be designed to give you height instead of width, youth instead of matronliness, slenderness and grace instead of heaviness. It doesn’t matter whether you buy your clothes ready made, have them made by a dressmaker, or make them yourself—you can always know just what to select to make your particular type of figure look as slim and well proportioned as possible.

You yourself are familiar with many optical illusions, although you may never have thought of them as such. When you look down the railroad tracks the rails appear to come together in the distance. No matter how much you tell yourself that the rails do not actually come together, the fact remains that they appear to do so. If you put the end of a stick in water it appears broken, although you know that in fact it is not broken.

The eyes in a certain portrait seem to follow you, no matter where you may go in the room in which it is hung. This illusion persists, no matter how much you may tell yourself that the eyes do not actually move. When you are on a moving train it is only by the constant succession of passing trees, posts, and landscape that you realize you are going forward. When these objects are shut off from your view by a train going in the opposite direction, you seem to be going backward. Or if you look at a moving picture taken from the front of a rapidly moving train or motor launch, it is difficult not to get the impression that you are rushing forward.

All of these are optical illusions, yet we do not think of them as illusions. They represent the natural and the normal and we make allowances for them.

The laws of illusion are more easily understood, perhaps, by means of simple lines than any other way. You will grasp them quickly by studying the various figures which illustrate this chapter.

Let us take a simple example to begin with having directly to do with the use of straight lines in dress. You have probably read a thousand times and heard a hundred times more that stout people must work for straight line effects and the straight line silhouette. But it is one thing to know this fact and another actually to accomplish it in your clothes. You can’t just hang a straight line down from the shoulder like a carpenter’s plumb on a door sill. You must know just where and just how to apply the straight line. You must learn to use straight lines so that they blend in with your costume—so that they give the desired effect without calling attention to the means by which it is achieved.

It is a popular theory among folks who would dress to look slender that stripes running up-and-down are the thing to wear, while stripes running across are to be avoided. This belief, like many another old-fashioned one, is only half true. For instance, it is true that if the up-and-down stripes in your material are very fine and unobtrusive they will have the effect of making you look taller and slimmer. This, however, is not at all true of broad stripes or of stripes in a definitely contrasting color—quite the contrary, in fact. Pronounced stripes merely call attention to themselves and do not create the illusion of slenderness which is desired.

But this is only one of many points to be taken into consideration when you plan a dress with stripes or with straight up-and-down lines of any kind. For instance, the illustrations on pages 18 and 19 show two up-and-down lines of exactly the same length. Take your ruler and measure them to convince yourself. Now note the effect on these lines of the shorter lines added to each end. The inverted arrows added to the line at the left make it appear shorter than it really is. The extended lines added to the one at the right make it appear longer than it really is. Now note the two costumes on these same pages in which these principles have been applied. In the one shown on the left the figure looks shorter and stouter than it really is, while in designing the dress on the right the correct use of the optical illusion has been observed and the result is a slender, graceful appearance. You can readily see from these pictures how a straight line effect can be either accentuated or shortened by the lines that run out from it.

There are many ways in which a stout woman who does not know this principle can easily ruin the effect of a costume. For instance, a woman who wears a perfectly straight up-and-down dress of quite correct lines may put a large mushroom shape hat on her head and perhaps a band of fur around the bottom of her skirt. This has precisely the same effect as the arrows which are turned the wrong way and therefore shorten and widen the straight line.

“I cannot understand why I look so short and dumpy,” she wails despairingly. “My dress is made on perfectly straight up-and-down lines and yet I look fatter than ever.” Of course she does, because instead of extending the straight up-and-down line by a small upturned hat of some sort and an unobtrusive skirt hem, she has broken the line at the top and bottom and thereby shortened and widened her appearance.

Another point to be very careful about is the matter of uninterrupted straight lines. For instance, the small diagrams on pages 22 and 23 show two pairs of perfectly straight up-and-down parallel lines. This is probably hard for you to believe, since the lines in the right-hand figure seem to definitely bulge outwards. However, careful measurement with your ruler or a pencil will prove to you that the lines actually are as straight as those in the figure on the left. These latter, however, appear straight because they are uninterrupted and unbroken. Those at the right appear to bulge outwards merely because there are so many radiating lines running through them.

Applying this principle to clothes, you can easily see that the tall, slender effect you hoped to gain by the straight up-and-down lines of your costume may be entirely ruined if you apply trimmings of any kind which radiate outwards toward these lines. The dresses shown on pages 22 and 23 will prove this to you. The woman at the left with her uninterrupted, harmonious, gracefully flowing up-and-down lines looks taller, slenderer, more dignified and in every way more pleasing than the woman at the right, the radiating lines of whose gown make her figure seem to bulge outwards in a most discouraging manner.

Another striking example of optical illusion showing one reason why some look stouter than they really are is shown in the illustrations on pages 26 and 27. As in the previous examples, the two figures (diamond shape figures in this case) are, by actual measurement, exactly the same size. The horizontal line across the one at the left, however, makes it appear much wider than the one at the right with the vertical line through the center.

Now study the clothes of the two women which illustrate these illusions. Both women are holding their arms so as to give their figures a sort of diamond shape. The one at the left, however, by her broad, drooping hat, her large, bulky fur stole, the large-figured material of her tunic, and especially by the horizontal, or nearly horizontal lines of her neck, her girdle, and the band of fur on her skirt, gives herself the appearance of conspicuous stoutness.

On the other hand, the woman at the right has designed her costume entirely on the principles of vertical lines. The tall hat with its appropriate trimming, the long, simple lines of her collar, her neck-piece, the row of tiny buttons down the front of her dress, and indeed the lines of the dress itself all conspire to give her the appearance of height, smartness, and slenderness.

MAKING YOURSELF TALLER THAN YOU ARE

By the illustrations on pages 30 and 31 you may learn the value of emphasizing a long line by the trick of placing it between two longer lines rather than between two shorter ones. As in the previous examples, the middle line in each figure is identically the same length. The one at the left, however, appears much shorter than the one at the right, because of a suggestion contained in the parallel lines which surround it.

In the dresses illustrated here, this principle is strikingly applied. The short vertical bands of trimming in the figure at the left make the center band seem shorter than it really is, whereas, the long vertical bands in the figure at the right make the center band seem longer than it really is. Thus, by the application of this seemingly unimportant trifle, the woman at the right seems slenderer, taller, and smarter than the one at the left.

LINES THAT SLENDERIZE TUNICS

Just one more example. The figures on pages 34 and 35 show how a longer, slimmer effect may be created by parallel lines emphasizing an oblique or slanting line. In the figure on the left the plain oblique line seems much more horizontal and wider than it does in the figure on the right where the same line, actually on the same slant, seems much longer and more graceful because of the parallel lines which break it and thereby emphasize its length.

This effect is gained by using the simple principle of optical illusion shown in the small diagram on page 35. The line running down from upper left to lower right is actually straight—test it and see. But the two perpendicular lines which break it cause it to seem to drop faster than it really does. This gives the effect of greater height and less width to the entire figure.

Dresses planned with this principle in mind will surely be more successful in their slenderizing effect, as you will see by these contrasting illustrations. The oblique line at the bottom of the tunic in the dress at the left seems almost horizontal and much wider than the same line in the figure at the right which is made to seem longer and more graceful by the parallel vertical lines of embroidery which intersect it and so emphasize its appearance of length and grace.

APPLY THESE RULES TO EVERY ITEM OF YOUR ATTIRE

There are dozens of other tricks which our eyes play on us which must be taken into account by women who want to look slender. A very careful study, therefore, of the optical illusions in this chapter will repay you many times in the matter of line, cut and pattern of every dress, wrap, hat, and pair of shoes that you buy. You must see that the facts of illusion may either work to produce an appearance of bigness or one of smallness. Every suggestion in this book is written with the idea of applying these essential principles of optical illusion to your dress—of producing in every case the slenderest possible effects.

SECRETS EVEN THE SLENDER WOMAN MUST KNOW

Not only very stout women, but moderately stout women, and even slender women should also bear these principles in mind, for even the slender woman can lose all the advantage of her slender silhouette and may actually appear stout by failing to dress in accordance with these optical illusions. An ill-chosen or badly-designed gown or wrap may easily give her the appearance of being many pounds heavier than she really is.

When you yourself begin planning your clothes according to these simple, though magically effective rules, you will very soon begin to find real artistic pleasure in your clothes, to say nothing of the improvement in your appearance. I am certain that you will feel about it as I did, that here at last is the only real and permanent way to look slender. For even though by strenuous efforts you are able actually to reduce your weight, it is not pounds, but appearance, that counts. You may know what the scales say, but other people will weigh you with the eye. Dress so you look slender and you can stop worrying about your size and weight and be as healthy, happy, and attractive as any of your slender friends.