You might not know it to look at me, but Arithmetic makes me SO happy. I'd much rather use numbers than guess where my body balance should be.

I honestly considered going into a long tutorial on HOW to find your perfect hem and shirt lengths. But you don't need a seamstress for that, as plenty of bloggers have covered it.

This is my favorite blog post on how to determine skirt and shirt lengths from Inside Out Style

So let's talk about the verticals today! I'm going to give you all my lengths. And we're going to break it all down! For ease of dividing, we'll be using cm instead of inches.

From top of head to floor, 154.94cm

From shoulder to floor, 133cm

From shoulder to waist, 33cm

From waist to floor, 100cm

First thing to do is find my ideal hem length. To do that we take from shoulder to floor and divide by 1.618 (the golden ratio). That is 82.20 cm from my shoulder. That ends approximately at the center of my knee. Please note, this is me WITHOUT shoes on. Anytime I wear a shoe with a different heel, the ratio will change.

Next we figure out the ideal place to end my tops. To get this number, we take my golden ratio and measure from the floor up 82.20 cm. Truth, that is somewhere right around the middle of my full hip! I have both long legs, which makes my waist look super stumpy, AND a long rise, which puts my natural waist about 100cm above the floor. That is 7" higher than my golden ratio! Ouch. No wonder putting anything at my natural waist makes my legs look ridiculously long AND completely out of proportion.

The real question here is how do I even use that information.
#1- I know not to end my tops at my natural waist, or I will look even stumpier on top.
#2- It explains why tunics that cut across my hip make my legs and body look proportionate. (at least there's that).
#3- It explains why I don't like gathered skirts at my natural waist. Empire waist yes. Drop waist, yes. Natural waist no. Although honestly, my empire line is only 10 cm (4") from my natural waist.
#4- Drop waist may be my friend...


Where do I go from here? I'm not sure. But it gives me a LOT to think about. How do your verticals compare?