Dress to Slim Your Middle – My Top 10 Tricks

Ways to hide your belly and slim your waist   If you’re thicker through the middle and always wanting to hide your belly, my first advice would be to take your focus off your belly!! You see…what you focus on is what you get, so start drawing your attention to another part of your body and watch those magic start to happen!!

• Avoid garments that cling around the middle and accentuate the problem area. Instead choose tops that skim rather than cling and fall from below the bust.

• Dresses or tops with an empire waistline can literally shave kilos off your body in an instant! These tops help to draw the eye away from your tummy, highlighting the smaller part of your torso giving you a great silhouette.

• Think wrap dresses or tops. This will do the same as above and are great for a work environment or dressier occasions.

• Get a professional bra fitting. When the “girls” are nice and high, it helps to separate the bust from the tummy making it easier to accentuate that smaller part which for most is under the bust.

• One of my favorite secret tricks is to show a little cleavage or some leg to detract attention from my tummy. Remember the eye will go where you tell it to go, so a deep V neck will raise the eye up towards the face also giving you a longer neckline making you look longer and leaner, while showing a little leg will have the same affect (but of course drawing the eye In the opposite direction) Both ways will help to take the eye away from the tummy.

• Opt for pants and skirts that don’t have any zips or buttons, as this will purely add more bulk that area.

• High-waisted pants and leggings will be your best friends, as they flatter the legs, stomach and bottom. They will also tend to fit comfortably around your belly, finishing at the smallest part of your waist and not creating any extra lines or bulges (aka muffin tops) where we don’t want them. Again you want to create a smooth foundation around this area and not create bulk.

• To dress up your leggings, there is always an abundance of gorgeous tunics and longer style tops to choose from. You just need to know where to shop.

• One of the easiest ways to work with the body you have is to use fashion as an optical illusion. Vertical lines lead the eye up and down and have a slimming effect no matter where you place them. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to wear stripes!! Layer with long open cardigans or wear jackets that create that vertical line through the centre of your body.

• Get your spanks on!! Last but definitely not least is to wear shape wear or even high-waisted underwear. For most this will be a little uncomfortable for day to day dressing, however shape wear can really give you that instant lift and tuck for those special occasions.