Understanding Body Proportions

This week I thought I’d talk to you about understanding body proportions. Now, I KNOW many of you reading this may roll your eyes at me – you and I both know that you don’t fit what the fashion and sewing pattern industry label as ‘normal’ – that is the number one reason why more men and women are taking up sewing each year.

I myself don’t fit the ‘norm’ either being six foot tall / 180cm and with a longer upper body length and shorter legs!

Yet, I still think it is really important to have an extensive post here on understanding our body’s proportions in order to help those sewing beginners who don’t understand why the sewing pattern they’ve chosen to use didn’t fit their body as anticipated.

Human Body Proportions

When it comes to human body proportions, the average body height comes in at 7.5x head lengths. This is of course just an average, and refers to adult height only – we’re not considering kids in this article.

But, as we’ve seen time and again, often a human figure will not have perfect anatomical proportions. This could be down to a variety of reasons:

• Leg length (longer legs or short legs than normal)
• Waist (short waist or long waist)
• Physique (though I’ll refer to body shapes rather than physique here)

To start with, I’m going to talk you through some of the different ‘types’ of body.

I’m then going to show you how to work out your own body proportions using the head length method. This is a really useful technique for working out whether sewing pattern styles will work for your body type or not.

Body Types Guide

I have created a guide of sorts below – inspired by something similar in the rather old and knackered Joseph-Armstrong “Patternmaking for Fashion Design” book tucked away on my shelf.

You can see from this guide that I have four body types depicted:

1. The “ideal” figure
2. The thin figure
3. The Athletic figure
4. The plus sized figure

Now, there is a little more to each of these above figures than meets the eye, and of course there are so many more variations on body proportions when it comes to body shape, but this will work as a basis.

Body Proportion Variations

Other body proportion variations to consider which will all affect the female figure and therefore the way that clothing fits are:

• Having a wide back and a narrow bust
• Having a large bust and a narrow back
• Having a very flat front waist but a protruding back waist
• Having a protruding tummy and a non-existent butt
• Having one shoulder sit lower than the other
• Having a greater or lesser distribution of body fat

Now, lets take a closer look at the depicted figures in the guide above.

The Ideal Human Figure

The ‘ideal’ is never one and the same. I have previously mentioned this in this post when talking about commercial patterns and again when I talk about making a sloper or block from commercial patterns.

Essentially though, the sizing of a sewing pattern or an item of clothing will be based on that brands’ ‘company sizing’.

We can therefore say that the ideal figure is based on the company’s target customer.

This is REALLY important to remember! A lot of my recent survey respondents talked about the disparity among both sewing pattern sizes and clothing sizes and this is the reason!

For many fashion brands, the “ideal” is as depicted here:

• Her body is symmetrical with perfect anatomical proportions
• There is a difference of between 10-12.5 inches between her bust, waist and hip measurements
• She stands upright with greate stature and minimal curvature of her spine
• Her body overall is evenly proportioned

Yet, there are companies and brands that have targeted a different body shape and so their products won’t necessarily work for customers in other body type categories.

Let’s take me as an example.

My Body Shape

Currently I am:

• 180cm tall
• 102cm / 40in bust
• 86.5cm / 34in natural waist
• 111cm / 43 ¾ in hip

I have 6 inches difference between my bust and waist, and then have 7 inches difference between my waist and hips. With the Western world’s “ideal” being 36-24-36, we can see that my female body is far from ideal!

Another consideration is that although I am 180cm tall I have a long torso for a human body, which means buying dresses or anything with sleeves is problematic.

Often the dresses are indecent!

The Thinner Human Figure

The ‘thinner’ body proportions depicted in my illustration aren’t so much thin as proportioned differently from the ‘ideal’.

• Sloping shoulders suggest a rounder back and narrow chest
• The roundness of the back looks to be pushing the bust line down, as if sitting lower against the rib cage
• Her waist appears thinner than the ideal
• Her hip to mid thigh is much more rounded
• She appares to have shorter legs too

The Athletic Human Figure

The body proportions of the athletic figure resemble a less hourglass-ness than the ‘ideal’.

• The shoulders appear as the ‘ideal’
• The bust is also located in the same position
• From the waist down, everything is a bit thicker having increased in width

The Plus Sized Human Figure

The Plus Sized Human Figure

The plus sized proportions are most extreme in terms of distance from the ‘ideal’.

• Long sloping shoulders
• Well endowed bust
• Waist is in the same location, but with more width than the ‘ideal’
• The crotch appears to be higher up
• Each leg is curvier too

And as mentioned earlier, there is another which has an effect on our body proportions – height!

Effect Of Less Height

If we make each of the female figures in my illustration ¾ of a head shorter, we can see that they have become even less proportionately ‘ideal’ when looked at side by side with the western ‘ideal’ – my ladies are definitely shorter and heavier with more width to their body.

Effect Of More Height

There is also the effect have adding height / lengthening the figure.

In the image above you get an idea of how fashion designers work – using a stretched or lengthened croquis / template as a design guide.

The ‘taller than ideal’ person has been stretched from the waist down, with most of the length added to the legs giving her a longer, taller appearance, with longer legs rather than a longer waist.

She is now one whole head taller than the ‘ideal’ beside her. I have maintained the proportion, in that I widened the figure so that it wasn’t unrealistically stick thin, but within fashion design, the norm would be to use a disproportionately thin and tall version with no accurate head to height ratio in use!

How Do We Use Head Length To Measure Proportion?

You may be wondering just why I am talking about the length of your head when talking about body proportions. Using your head length is a fantastic way to measure your body proportionately, so that you can work out whether a pattern will suit your body.

Start by measuring your head, from the crown of your head down to your chin. Its a good idea to use a fixed ruler rather than a tape measure. Mine is 23cm / 9 inches.

My height of 180cm can be divided into 23cm to give me my height in head measurements:

180 ÷ 23 = 7.83

My body is therefore almost 8 head lengths long.

This is where the fun starts!

The Rest Of My Body Proportionately

Using a ruler, I can now work out whether the rest of my body falls in terms of the ‘ideal’ human proportion.

• 1 head = from my crown to my chin (23cm / 9in)
• 2 heads = 4cm above fullest part of bust
• 3 heads = 6cm below natural waist
• 4 heads = 6cm above crotch (this is the long upper body I mentioned before)
• 5 heads = 6cm below mid thigh
• 6 heads = 8cm below knee (my mid calf is therefore at the correct 6.5 heads)
• 7 heads = 12cm above ankle
• 8 heads = the floor

I made an illustrated version, so you can better see the difference.

By using this technique we can see where key lines of our body lie in proportion to others.

I know that from this that I will most likely need to lengthen any upper bodice sections on commercial patterns to accomadte my long waist. I’ll also have to lengthen trousers too to accomodate my leg length.

The next stage would be to factor in girth changes – as in width, going around the body, rather than from the top down. We’ll cover that in another post.