How do your features impact on your jewellery choices?
In this chat with YouTube video creator and 7 Steps to Style sister Carol Karl we talk about how to find balance with your features using the concepts of Yin and Yang. If you missed our first chat all about personality and choosing clothes and jewellery check it out here.
Watch it here now
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Yin and Yang = Balance
I’ve talked about the concepts of Yin and Yang before a few times (you can find them here), but to quickly recap, when you think about Yin and Yang it’s all about balance.
Balance between:
- Soft and strong
- Feminine and masculine
- Approachability and authority
- Light and dark
- Smoky and bright
So when you think about Yin and Yang with regard to clothing and accessories, there are different elements related to each.
Yin Elements of Clothing and Design include
- Curved lines
- Thin lines
- Horizontal Lines
- Curved shapes
- Small shapes
- Low contrast
- Muted/smoky/soft colours
- Soft textures
- Lightweight fabrics and details
- Think fabrics
- Matt fabrics
- Sheer fabrics
- Natural flowing patterns
Yang Elements of Clothing and Design include:
- Straight lines
- Solid lines
- Thick/bold lines
- Vertical lines
- Angled shapes
- Large scale
- Bright colours
- High contrast
- Crisp fabrics
- Heavyweight fabrics
- Thick fabrics
- Shiny Fabrics
Communicating with Your Clothing and Jewellery
When you think about these design elements and what you want to communicate with your clothes, you can use these design elements to craft an outfit and make jewellery selection that speaks in the way that you choose.
Want to be seen as more professional? Then add more Yang details to your outfits.
Want to be seen as more approachable? Then add more Yin elements to your outfits.
You can always balance both of these by combining Yin and Yang in any outfit.
Use these elements of design in a thoughtful and considered way to give you a subconscious advantage in the workplace. Understanding that men are more naturally Yang (so seen as more authoritative) because of their height, deep voices and solid, heavyweight, vertical clothing styles means that as a woman it’s important to be able to choose what you wear in a way that gives you some additional power, and so knowing this subconscious, silent language is a fantastic tool to use when deciding what to wear.
What are Your Features?
- Are you taller or shorter?
- Are you dark haired or fair?
- Do you have a high value contrast or a low one?
Each of these elements of your own design will impact how others treat you. Just as I discovered when I went from being dark value and high value contrast, to light value and lower value contrast, I was told I seemed “friendlier” yet I hadn’t changed, it was just my colouring.
Choosing Jewellery to Match or Balance Your Features
Thinking about the concepts of Yin and Yang, and the rest of the outfit you’re choosing, you can choose to make your outfits appear:
More Yang
- Larger scale jewellery
- Higher contrast jewellery
- More angled shapes in your jewellery
My necklace here is more Yang – it’s heavier weight, more angled shapes, larger scale and provides some contrast to my dress, my bracelet is a wider cuff in a solid fabric, my ring a large scale
More Yin
- Smaller scale jewellery
- Lower contrast colours
- Curved shapes in your jewellery
My jewellery choices here are more Yin – they blend with the outfit (lower contrast) are lighter in weight, curvy in shape, and more delicate and sparkly
Or you can go for a combination of the two, and look for jewellery that is naturally balanced.
This Erstwilder necklace is a balance of Yin and Yang – it’s curvy (yin) but larger scale (yang)
Here is another Erstwilder (Gunggamburra Butterfly) piece that has a natural balance between Yin and Yang. The curvy shape of the butterflies and the dots in the design are more Yin, but the slightly larger scale adds a little Yang to their appearance
The choice is yours and you can change up how an outfit appears just by changing the jewellery to being more Yin or more Yang.
Have fun playing with this concept.
And if you want to dive deep into Yin and Yang, it’s covered in depth in my 7 Steps to Style program so that you can fully utilise this powerful form of non-verbal communication to enhance your life (and outfits too)!
Further Reading on Yin and Yang
More on Identifying Yin and Yang in Clothing Design
How to Understand the Yin and Yang of Clothing
Using Yin and Yang in Clothing Design to Balance Your Appearance
