Who Decides What “Suits” You?

Written by Vania Phitidis
Peaceful Eating Coach
Last updated on 26 September 2025

We’ve all heard it: “That really suits you.” Sometimes it feels like a compliment, sometimes like a coded way of saying “this makes you look thinner/taller/more ‘acceptable.’” But have you ever paused to wonder – who actually decided what counts as “suiting” someone?

The idea of clothes “suiting” a person is far less about personal expression than it is about cultural conditioning. What’s usually meant is: the outfit helps reshape you to align more closely with current beauty ideals. It makes your legs look taller. It “balances out” your hips. It creates the illusion of a waist. It makes you seem smaller, taller, less broad, less soft, less visible.

But says who?

Fashion advice has long been built on the assumption that bodies are problems to be corrected. The “rules” about horizontal stripes, necklines, skirt lengths, colours, and cuts didn’t arise in a vacuum. They emerged from a culture obsessed with thinness, height, youth, whiteness, and gender norms – and they shift over time depending on who holds cultural influence.

Take the Victorian bustle, designed to exaggerate hips. Or the 1920s flapper dresses, which aimed to flatten curves altogether. Or the shoulder pads of the 1980s, which created angular lines and strong silhouettes, echoing a moment when women were entering the workplace in larger numbers. Or the “slimming black dress” of the 1990s.

And then there are the rules about what patterns or colours supposedly “go together.” Who decided you can’t wear a paisley printed top with polka dot trousers—that they “clash”? Who came up with the idea that certain colours “drain you” or that you must “get your colours done” before you can step out the door? These rules change with the decade, the fashion cycle, or even the stylist writing the latest magazine column. One year it’s “never wear navy with black,” the next it’s the height of chic.

Each era dictates new proportions, palettes, and silhouettes, and with them, new rules about what “suits” you. The rules are never neutral – they serve the prevailing aesthetic of the time.

And here’s where it gets even trickier: when clients tell me they “feel good” in certain clothes, I sometimes notice that what they really mean is they feel safe. Safe from standing out. Safe from being judged. Safe from attracting comments. Feeling good often comes to mean: I won’t be criticised for how I look today. Which is understandable in a culture where bodies are scrutinised – but it also shows how narrow the space for true self-expression can feel.

But imagine this: what if we lived in a world where people genuinely felt free to wear what they wanted to wear? Clothes chosen because they were comfortable, because the fabric felt good against the skin, because the colour or pattern delighted them, because the style reflected their mood or identity. Imagine getting dressed without even the tiniest flicker of “what will they think?” Imagine moving through the world fully in your body and your experience, not in anticipation of outside eyeballs – whether welcome or unwelcome.

What if “suiting” you had nothing to do with disguising or correcting – or even with staying safely inside the lines? What if it simply meant:

• Does this feel good on my body, not just safe from criticism?
• Does this allow me to move freely?
• Does this reflect something about who I am today?
• Do I feel at home in it, not just invisible in it?

When we step back from the idea that clothes are meant to fix us – or to shield us from the gaze of others – we can start to reclaim them as part of our self-expression, not self-erasure. The truth is, the only person who can decide what “suits” you is you. And it doesn’t need to be about looking smaller, taller, or more acceptable. It can simply be about feeling more yourself.