Tuesday, June 17, 2014

More disagreement with Kibbe

Here's some Classic faces.

Facial features: Chiseled, symmetrical and evenly spaced.
(Kibbe "chiseled" means that the face has sharpish edges, is precise and crisp, not soft, but not angular and pointy either.)

A Classic will not have prominent or exotic facial features or full and lush facial features (extremely round eyes, full lips, fleshy cheeks).

I don't think Isabelle Huppert is a Classic. Too yang face.

Here's some Dramatic Classic faces.


Facial Features: Usually moderate to large eyes, moderate lips.
A Dramatic Classic will not have extremely exotic or overly lush facial features.

And here's Jackie.


I don't think Katharine Ross belongs is Dramatic Classic either. Big yin eyes, soft, curvy yin mouth... I'd say she's Soft Natural. Her personal, chosen style is Natural.

Phylicia Rashad differs from the rest so much, I didn't even add her. Her chin is too small, her face heart-shaped, her eyes big and beautiful and lush...

Then the soft classics
 
"Facial features; Soft and full, slightly fleshy. Large eyes, soft cheeks, full lips. Symmetrical and evenly spaced.
A Soft Classic will not have a large or angular bone structure"
So Meryl Streep is not Soft Classics.

The lady who differs all too much from the rest in this category is Catherine Oxenberg. This is one of her modelin photos, and she's over 20 in it, so that's not some baby fat and not ready bone structure. She has round face, perhaps heart shaped. 100% yin. Now, a Soft Classic's face SHOULD be yin,


Now... Kibbe doesn't think women should be "ingénues", that is "soft gamines".
Kibbe also doesn't think women can have yang bones and yin flesh and/or face, at least if they are taller than 5'5. So all tall ladies with long, slender limbs and curves and heart shaped face are placed in classics. Kibbe treats Classics a bit as if they were grown up Gamines.

There really should be some sort of rules to help people better define the style.
Like
- diamond shape face = Dramatic
- square or rectangular face = Dramatic or Natural, depending on body type. Ectomorphs Dramatic, mesomorphs Natural.
- oval or oblong face = classic
- heart shaped, inverted triangle or round face = Romantic

If your body is long, straight and thin = dramatic
If your body is top-heavy, athletic = natural
If your body is more or less "figure 8" - moderate hourglass, either top or bottom = classic
If you're an oval, an apple, then it's about your shoulders.
If your shoulders are wide = natural,
                                  average = classic
                                  narrow = romantic
If your body is pear or hourglass = romantic
If your body is petite = gamine

9 comments:

  1. Inverted triangle face in romantics? Are you sure?

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  2. Inverted triangle face in romantics? Are you sure?

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  3. You will never agree with Kibbe until you speak two different languages. Symmetry: are you sure that you know what Kibbe means when he mention symmetry? It has to do with the goled ratio rather than the left and right side of the face/body being identical (nobody's left and right side is perfectly identical!). And where Kibbe said that diamond faces are Dramatic? I see diamond faces more frequently among Gamines, but I don't think that the face shape alone can determine the way a person can dress her whole body. Why you think that Maryl Streep cannot be a Soft Classic? She has a Classic face with smaller, Romantic features.

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    1. Yes and yes. Kibbe is about the ratios in your OWN body, not comparison. Only petite gamines? Audrey Hepburn (5'7)? Twiggy (5'6)? Lily Cole (5'9)? It is more about how your lines blend (or not blend). Especially for gamines, that stacatto in their lines will differ for each person. We just can say, certain face shape=certain body type. It's just not how it works xd

      Btw i am a pure gamine, 5'7.5, inverted triangle/heart shaped face. We just can't rule out body types based on face shapes and "fruit" body types

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  4. My body is long and straight, but not thin, square shoulders, prominent nose, soft flesh, small hands and feet and my face is a little roundish, no fucking idea what type I am, thought I was a soft natural, but I'm not sure

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    1. I'm also 5'7 and the flesh on face is pretty taught

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  5. I'm a soft classic body type with a squarish face ��

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  6. Hi!
    This disagreement you have with Kibbe's system is actually very helpful, especially the "rules" you define at the end: they remove a lot of the subjectivity in the body types descriptions.

    Have you developed these ideas any further? As an update on Kibbe's System?

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete