Abstract
Classification systems used to describe female body shapes (FFIT, Sheldon’s somatotyping, the Kibbe system) have developed largely in isolation from the styling tools practitioners rely on when correcting visual proportions. Styling recommendations, as a consequence, tend to be intuitive and methodologically ungrounded. This study develops a comparative model of styling strategies for five body types (hourglass, triangle, inverted triangle, rectangle, oval), drawing on documented visual illusion mechanisms and Gestalt perception principles. Methodologically, the work rests on comparative and morphological analysis of 25 academic sources together with the author’s consulting records accumulated over ten years and 200 individual clients. Among the results is a matrix that pairs each figure type with a specific illusory mechanism, whether Helmholtz illusion, Müller-Lyer effect, or Gestalt grouping. A five-stage algorithm for proportion correction is also proposed; it introduces authenticity preservation as an evaluation criterion that existing models have not addressed. Styling strategies, the analysis suggests, yield perceptual outcomes that appear to differ according to both the body’s anatomical configuration and the visual mechanism in play. Practical relevance extends to consulting practice, stylist training curricula, and e-commerce recommendation engines built around body shape data. The proposed framework also clarifies how styling choices can be systematized without erasing individual identity, making the model suitable for both professional consultations and stylist education.
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