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9 Styling Tricks That Make Short Legs Look Longer

short-legs

First things first…short legs are extremely common. You wouldn’t know it by all the outfit pictures of women with mile-long limbs on Pinterest, but for a lot of us – we either arent’ that tall to begin with, or majority of our length is carried in our torso.

Luckily, there’s a lot of things we can do to give ourselves some extra visual height.

Dressing for your body type means understanding how to play with proportions – where are you widest vs where are you narrowest, where are you shortest vs where are you tallest – and then using clothes to balance the discrepancy between the two.

Or, avoiding styling choices that further enhance the disparity.

It’s actually quite simple when you think about it, people just have a tendancy of oevrcomplicating it. Which is the entire reason we spend all of Module 2 in our online style course, Unlock Your Signature Style, dedicated to teaching you everything there is to know about dressing for your shape.

 

When it comes to making short legs look longer…

The key is to do whatever you can to make the line of your legs appear as long, and unbroken as possible.

In order to do that, here are the most important styling tips to follow if you’re trying to figure out how to make short legs look longer.

1: High-Rise Everything

Your legs visually start where your torso ends, so the easiest way to make them look longer is to raise the placement of your waistline. Think: less torso = more legs.

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2: Tuck in Your Shirt

Showcase your high-rise by tucking or half-tucking your shirt. Untucked hemlines that hit at your hips, visually cut off the top quarter of your legs, making them appear shorter.

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3: Go Monochrome

Dressing in one color from head to toe creates a long visual line, making it so that they eye can’t distinguish between where the torso ends and legs begin.

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4: Avoid Anything Shin-Length

Opt for knee-length or ankle-length skirts and dresses. Hems that hit directly at your mid-shin, cut off a quarter of the visual length of your body, making your legs appear much shorter.

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5: Match Shoes and Pants

Lengthen the line of your legs by matching shoes to your pant color – think dark with dark, and vice versa. Tan shoes with black pants creates a distinctive break in the visual line and should always be avoided.

Bonus tip, you’ll always make your legs look longer in a dress or skirt by choosing shoes in a color closest to your skin tone.

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6: Crop On Top

Go for the cropped-effect by keeping your jacket short. This works in the same way as high rise pants, by creating the visual impression of a short torso in contrast to your legs.

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7: Or Go Long Line

The reverse of crop-on-top is adding an extra long outer layer (jacket or cardigan), making the overall look of your entire body appear longer.

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8: Rock a Slit

Showing a bit of skin on your leg partially breaks up a longer hem, while also adding a vertical (aka lengthening) line to your outfit.

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9: Choose a Wide Leg

Wide leg, extra long floor-grazing pants, make it impossible to tell how long your legs actually are – or the overall shape for that matter. It’s the most flattering pant-style across the board!

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