Dress Of The Day with Angela

 I had heard of the rule of thirds in photography, but not in clothes. You can look at the rule of thirds up and down or side to side when composing or cropping a photo of yourself or another human body or a landscape. I like to have the head, hair, hands and feet in the picture. Some newspaper editors, on the contrary, crop faces to cut off hair and show eyes to make eyes bigger and a small face photo bigger on the page.  I prefer central interest. Symmetry. I agree that a figure on one side can be arresting, especially if it frames the distant view. Now, what about clothes. Can we apply the rule of thirds? We can make sure that a colour accent is in all thirds of the picture, the hairband, the belt and the shoes. I look at myself in a full length mirror before taking photos. I try front view, sideways, head turned, arms out and in, up or down, forward and back. I add and remove belts. Smaller or larger bags. Complementary or contrasting colours. Finally, we take two or three...

In the good old days we used to buy bra strap fasteners. They consisted of a double ribbon fastened with a snap fastener over the bra strap, and a safety pin to pin the item to the underside of the blouse's or top's shoulders. You bought one or a set or two or three, and moved them from garment to garment by unpinning the safety pins. I would often leave them inside the garment, lose the garment or the pins, buy a new set, and find the old ones years later. Sometimes they stayed crisp. Sometimes the ribbon would fray. Now I have lots more methods for concealing or revealing bra straps. The biggest problem is bras with spaghetti straps. They are small, they slip. They are obviously part of an undergarment. Make sure you have a bra which matches your favourite travel outfit. When buying a top or dress, buy a matching bra. (Even a wrong size bra. You can swap the straps, providing there is nothing revealed in the underarms of a sleeveless outfit. I cover with a jacket. If I want m...