Every change of season, the coat is the easiest thing to buy wrong. The problem is rarely the style. It is the proportion.
The first approach is the common one: worn open, dark underneath, pale coat above. Safe — but the visual weight sinks, and shorter wearers end up looking shorter still.
Second: raise the waist
The second is to raise the waistline deliberately — a tonal belt tied about two fingers above the natural waist, with a shorter top underneath. Handled this way, the legs take up visibly more of the silhouette.
The point is not the belt itself but where the line falls. Most people tie it at the hip, which lowers the proportion instead.
Whether a coat makes you look tall is eighty per cent where the waist sits and twenty per cent the length.— A stylist’s rule of thumb
Third: all one tone
The third is tonal dressing: coat, top and trousers in different values of the same colour. It is the least effortful way to look taller, because there is no horizontal block of colour cutting across you.
- Waist: about two fingers above the natural waistline
- Underneath: shorter tops, avoiding a hem showing below
- Hem and shoe: trousers just above the shoe reads sharper
- Colour: different values of one tone is the least work
The last detail is where the trouser meets the shoe. Just above the shoe reads sharp; pooling on the instep reads heavy.
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