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When it comes to buying clothes or selecting an outfit to wear if you’re a shorter gent, piecing items of clothing together that will ultimately appear to lengthen your body or visually extend your silhouette can be quite tricky. There are several ways in which this can be achieved and many are simple tweaks that will soon become second nature to you. It doesn’t matter if you are slim, well-built or overweight – the goal is the same: you want to draw the eye up and extend in height. Remember that the tips and techniques outlined below should be used as a guideline, so make sure you apply them according to your own individual shape and needs.

Go With Fitted Clothes

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Always wear fitted clothes and suits that stay especially close to the body. Without question, baggy clothes will stretch the silhouette horizontally, causing you to look wider, instead of taller. Think about lengthening (instead of widening) yourself from head-to-toe whenever you dress. It’s sobering to notice the transformation that a shorter man experiences when he forgoes his baggy clothing for clothes that reveal a streamlined silhouette.

Avoid Certain Accessories

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A belt is put on horizontally. The horizontal line that is created by the belt visually cuts the body in half. Waistcoats (or vests) have a shortening effect by creating a very busy middle-section of the body, which draws attention away from the overall vertical line.

Choose Your Colours Wisely

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The ideal and most effective palette for a shorter guy is one that revolves around monochromatic hues, or black and white. When combined with classic muted colours such as brown, charcoal, oxblood and olive the result will be both productive and timeless. The idea behind this is that dark colours work together to lengthen and extend. It’s a well known fact that black is slimming, so using that concept as a foundation, a mix of darker hues offers a similar effect whilst introducing a spot of colour – preventing your outfits from becoming repetitive.

Button Up

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This may look like a strange and weak suggestion, but this is one of the main important points to take into consideration. As shown in the above image, choose jackets with a high waist button, or button stance, which draws the eye higher up on the body, as well as lengthens the appearance of the legs.

Amelia Graham

Silas jackson is a clothing brand focused on men 5’8″ and under. Click here to visit the website to see more from the current collection.