Read Online A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style by Tim Gunn, Kate Maloney - Free Book Online Page B

They are terrible walkers. One can see it all—clumpers and shufflers, weavers and waddlers. It’s not just on city sidewalks, either. We cannot forget a day spent on a gorgeous beach this past summer watching a parade of swimsuit-clad bodies traipse by. The problemsweren’t the bikinied and betrunked physiques; it was the way their owners dragged themselves up and down the sand. You’d think they were on their way to the gallows, not lunch and a glass of rosé. These were people who had obviously invested time at the gym, and plenty of money at Eres. Yet the whole effect they’d worked to achieve was undone by the simple act of walking. Far, far better to be softer of tone but walking with one’s head and neck in proper alignment than to be a hunched person with visible stomach muscles.
    So much of the information we take in about another person is transmitted subconsciously, and few things say more about us than the way we get ourselves from place to place. The person who moves gracefully is immediately more attractive, regardless of their physical characteristics. Grace, and the idea of cultivating it, can seem a bit Victorian and fussy. This could not be further from the truth. Grace is the result of a body working smoothly. Grace is available to everyone; forget any associations with debutante balls or porcelain-painting classes. Cultivating it is simply a matter of becoming aware of how one is moving and correcting any quirks. The body is like an ecosystem—a knee slightly out of line means a thigh bone out of place, which means the hip is out of place. Surely you get the picture. The key to successful perambulation, ignored by too many, is so simple it’s almost embarrassing. Ready? Here it is: Let your legs do the walking. Before you throw this book down in disgust, try this: Stand up and lift your leg from the thigh. Not from the hip, but lift from the top of the leg itself. Now take stock of theposition you find yourself in. Are you leaning forward? Have you subtly popped the opposing hip out? Focus on bringing all those popping hips and raised shoulders back into line. You may want to try this in front of a mirror; often what feels aligned to us is not. We are so accustomed to being crooked, we don’t know the difference! Now take a few steps while thinking of keeping the pelvis in bistro position, shoulders down and relaxed, and the head resting lightly on the neck. Heads have a habit of drifting forward, as if the hairline needs to arrive before the rest of you. Gently bring that anxious head back in line.
     
    Changing one’s posture, both walking and standing still, takes time. One wise suggestion is to check your posture every time you glance at the time. Do a mental sweep of your body. Shoulders down? Collarbone wide? Pelvis slightly tucked? It will soon be second nature.
     

     
    Since most of us live in environments which require shoes and clothing, it is important to look out for the posture problems they cause. Shoes are the most obvious culprit, but they are not alone. Here are three foot and fashion faux pas to avoid:
     
    1. Flip-Flop Waddle . Every summer, people all over celebrate the arrival of temperate weather by casting aside constricting winter shoes in favor of the flip-flop. Although we have discussed the flip-flop’s appropriateness in various situations, we have not mentioned the very real problem of flip-flop–induced waddling. Now, some people are just prone to waddling—i.e., the extremely pregnant—but we are convinced that the unstructured nature of the flip-flop causes many other completely unnecessary cases. It happens like this: The feet, enjoying their freedom, are slowly allowed to turn out until they are no longer parallel. This gait not only looks ungainly from the front, it does terrible, terrible things to the view from the back. The legs are turned out from the hip joints, causing a general spreading and widening of the bottom. Take a look next time you are on