Spring trend: open-back sundresses (plus my latest DIY idea)

I love to show off my back. I like the curve of my shoulder blades and the mole on my right shoulder. Perhaps that's why I like open-back sundresses so much, or perhaps it's because I love the excuse (when the weather gets warm enough) to show a little skin in a way that's both flirty and innocent.

If you haven't nothing in the way of breasts to show off, an open back is a great option for looking sexy, but if you're a girl with an ample bosom (as I am) finding at open-back dress that can be worn with a bra can be a difficult task. One option is to wear a skirt over something in the way of an open-back leotard (I have a bunch of them for ballet), which is tight-fitting and has a built in shelf bra. But, if you really want a genuine open-back sundress, there are styles that give enough coverage to hide a bra.

I found that Urban Outfitters usually has an incredible selection of open-back sun dresses. Here are a slew of them that are available now. As you can see, some are more accommodating to bra wearers than others. (Click any of the photos for a link to its listing on urbanoutfitters.com.

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Now, for my latest DIY idea. Last summer, I tried on this dress at--you guessed it--Urban Outfitters, but found that it didn't fit me in the most flattering way.

Still in love with the dress, and never to be outdone, I've been scheming to alter a thrift-store dress into something approximating it. First, I plan to take one of those calf-length cotton dresses from the 1990s that I always see at thrift stores and shortening it. I will choose one of the ones with a button-down bodice, but that doesn't button all the way to the hem. I will turn it around backward and cut the bodice of the dress from the skirt across the front of the dress (which is now the back of the dress), hem it and put in some elastic with the hem of the top of the skirt. Since the back of a neckline is usually higher than the front of one, I will probably need to open up the neckline a bit too at the back of the dress (which is now the front).

Here is roughly my plan. The front of the original dress is on the left and the back of the new dress is on the right.

I'll post pictures after the process! Perhaps I'll even get myself in gear enough to do a DIY video of it. Stay tuned!

Sweater dresses

Sweater dresses are one of my favorite things to wear in the winter because they are warm and cozy while also being feminine and sexy. The secret to looking great in a sweater dress is to find one that is a good shape for you in a not-to-bulky material.

If you have a small frame and a relatively flat chest, take a cue from Nicole Richie and find a form-fitting turtleneck style.

If you are a curvier girl, you can either rock those curves with a form-fitting style, of wear something a little more A-line, like one of these.

Marion H. on lookbook.nu

Arielle N. on lookbook.nu

What jeans suit your body type (women)

Jeans are one of those great items that look good on everyone. The trick to finding the pair that look best on you is to know your body type and find what flatters it. I offer up the following as a general guide.

Flat butt

Forget padded underwear. All you need to do to give yourself the illusion of junk in the trunk is to buy jeans with pocket details such as flaps. These add dimension to your back side and help give you some shape and not look so flat.

Bubble butt

"Apple-bottom jeans" is not just a silly song lyric; it's a description of jeans made to accommodate an ample rear end. An easy trick for finding out if jeans have extra room in the back is to compare the height of the waistband in the back to the height of the waistband in the front. If it's not higher in back, there's no room for your badonkadonk. Another tip: ultra-low-rise rarely leave room for even the most humble curves; better to go with mid-rise or higher.

Short legs

To have longer looking legs, avoid anything cropped. I know there's a temptation to buy cropped pants because regular ones so often don't come in your inseam, but try to avoid this temptation because cropped pants just make your legs look shorter. Luckily, jeans usually come in a variety of lengths, so you can find ones that fit more easily than you can in some other styles of pants. But do remember that longer jeans, especially ones with a bit of a flare, look great with heels. If you're one of the shorter girls who has embraced heels and all they can do for you, then God love you; you're making the most of your body type already. Buy a pair of boot-cut or flare jeans that are about two inches too long, pair them with some killer heels, and you'll look as long and lean as a super model.

Long legs

Again, jeans, more than other pants, tend to come in a variety of inseams, but if you're still having trouble finding a pair you love, keep cropped and rolled hems in mine. Hardly anything looks more chic than a cheeky bit of ankle peering out and you've got the mile-long gams to pull it off. Just make sure that the jeans you roll are skinny or straight leg at the widest. Cropped flares never looked good on anyone.

Wide thighs

If your thighs are the bane of your existence, as mine are of mine, then you've probably already noticed that skinny jeans are hard to pull off. Since they emphasize the thinness of your ankles, the thickness of your thighs looks huge by comparison. I find that I only really look good in skinny jeans if I wear them with boots or heels, both of which are slimming enough to compensate. Skinny jeans with flats make me look dumpy and frumpy. So what cut is best? Flare and boot-cut jeans both do a lot to balance out the width of thigh. In a pair of these babies, your legs will look thin in the middle and flare out on both ends, creating a sexy curve.

Skinny thighs

My grandmother always complains that she has been bow-legged all her life. I look at her size-4 frame and wonder what's so bad about that? The fact is that, since wide thighs are my personal body-image demon, it's hard for me to see how the opposite (skinny legs) could even be seen as a bad thing. But the truth is that any deviation from the mean can make a person feel insecure about their body. I recognize that some women are insecure about their skinny legs, even though all I see when I look at them are inches and inches of glorious space between their thighs. Anyway, here's my prescription: boyfriend jeans. The bagginess of the cut will disguise how thin your legs actually are, and, since you are blessed with a thin frame, that extra bulk won't make you look fat, like it can on curvy women. To keep the look feminine (and never dumpy), take a cue from celebrities with your same body type and wear the jeans cuffed with a pair of heels.