Body Focus versus Face Focus

AKA: Where do you want people to look?

Happy day, reader dear!

Where do you want people to look? I have heard all kinds of answers to this question, and mostly of the NOT form. Not at my thighs. Not at my tummy. Not at my boobs. Not at my legs. Not at my fill-in-the-blank. Where do we normally want people to look? At our faces! Our face is our communication center. It’s where all the really important stuff is happening!

When I was in high school, I “developed” over one very busy summer. The growth spurt was impressive: not much up, lots of out. I went from the nickname “Bones” to having every male I met address “the girls” when we met. In college, I remember popping a guy under the chin with a “Hey, I’m up here!” I became self-conscious about my bust, and spent a lot of time trying to keep it under wraps. If only I knew then what I know now!

What I needed to know was about Face Focus and Body Focus. Test this out! Grab your phone, and look at your last full-body picture. Not that bird’s eye selfie, or one you took with your selfie stick, but one someone else took for you. Look away and look again at yourself. What do you see first? Your face? Or your body?

Here’s an example:

Close your eyes, and open them again. Where is your eye dragged? I would bet the darker outfit! What’s that all about? Let’s take a closer look…

Here, I am wearing dark from head to toe. The colors work for me, but together are darker than my natural coloring. My coloring is predominantly light: light hair and light skin. So, although the colors work in my Sublime palette, they aren’t the best for keeping attention on my face.

Below, the lighter outfit is more in harmony with my natural coloring, or one might say: my physiology. The outfit is light overall, harmonizing with my light cool coloring. There’s a pop of darker (the blue bag) to reflect the Value Contrast my dark eyes create against my light skin and hair.

If you want to create a Face Focus, harmonize your outfit with your natural coloring! Especially on your top half! Your overall Value is the first thing to check, and then take your Value Contrast, Color Contrast, and personal coloring into account. You might wonder why anyone would want to create a Body Focus! Well, bodybuilders, athletes making training videos, and speakers who are on stage in front of a large group may want a body focus. It’s about knowing your purpose when you are dressing, and dressing for that purpose.