Hello again, you know the drill. We’ve got together five more styles to add to your vocabulary this week. This week is heavy on the hemline so gather yours and get ready to have a couple of ‘ooohhhh’ moments with others.

Empire Line:
The empire line, companion to every promgoer, bridesmaid and bride ever. You may know it as the ‘empire waistline’ but the ‘line’ doesn’t actually begin at the waist. In fact, it cinches under the bustline and flows down loosely over the body. This style accentuates the bust and keeps the body’s silhouette modest.

Epaulette:
You may sometimes see this word spelt ‘Epaulette’, which is the féminine form, and that’s because the word comes from French and means ‘little shoulder’. The style was adopted from the military where they use epaulettes to signify ranks on their uniform. For us here in Jamaica, the epaulette is used mostly on boys’ school uniforms to mark the schools they’re from. These epaulettes may also mark if a student is in upper or lower school with stripes. Of course, you may also find epaulettes in fashion, mostly jackets which are embellished with other styles, such as Frog Fastenings, harking back to their military origin.

Flounce:
You’ve all seen a flounce, it’s the extra strip of fabric that’s sewn on to a dress or skirt. This exaggerated bit of fabric creates movement and body in the garment and does a pretty good job at framing the legs.

Fluted Hem:
Like the flounce, the fluted hem creates an exaggerated silhouette which frames the legs. The fluted hem sits at the end of a body contouring (or body con for the initiated) skirt and flairs at the knees. This style of hem is also very popular with bridal gowns as they create a hyper-feminine shape.

Godet Pleat:
If you need a skirt that swings, this is the pleat for you. Extra fabric is inserted in-between panels around the hem of the skirt giving the hem some body. Godets can be fitted on to any length skirt and each length has an appropriately sized godet to give it that extra oomph!