Gamine Fashion (plus Dramatic and Ingenue): Joy personified

fashiongamine fashion
Written By Liz .

This post claimed that Natural Classic Sienna Miller isn’t ideally harmonious in this Dramatic Gamine Ingenue outfit:

image credit: "sienna miller" by Kiki Maraschino is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

And one response is that it’s just kind of a loud jacket and color combo—would anyone pull that off?

Yes—and some faces can pull off even bolder fashion.

Lupita Nyong’o is a Dramatic Gamine Ingenue, and her beautiful face combines the striking, playful, and sweet vibes in Sienna’s outfit.

Dramatic Gamine Ingenue—what to wear

Here’s Lupita in styles that harmonize with her face.

So many Gamine elements—bright colors, short sharp silhouettes, small geometric shapes, and print-mixing. Her joy, and the joy her outfits exude, mesmerizes.

What takes her beauty to the extreme is that not only are her outfits creative and exuberant in themselves—they also perfectly harmonize with the vibes of her striking (Dramatic), vivacious (Gamine), and sweet (Ingenue) face.

She embodies the humor and vitality of the Gamine essence. If you have Gamine, you have the luxury (even though Romantics are the ones who dress in literal luxury) of clothing yourself in the visual embodiment of positive emotion.

You also get to look harmonious in print combinations that no one thought it was possible to pull off:

This might win a record for the most print-mixing done in one outfit—and it works!

Lupita illustrates, just as Natural Classic Sienna illustrates, that dressing by our style essences doesn’t have to compromise creativity. Just as people who only write music in one genre or only paint in one specific style aren’t necessarily compromising their creativity. Sometimes limitations fuel creativity, like by motivating us to find inventive ways of making our style types fit our personal style if the two aren’t an obvious match.

Dramatic Gamine Ingenue—what not to wear

It’s also interesting to compare how Lupita looks in the above photos to how she looks when she isn’t styled based on her essences:

"File:Ms. magazine Cover - Spring 2016.jpg" by Liberty Media for Women, LLC is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Here her outfit and makeup lack any trace of Gamine playfulness or Dramatic edginess. The dress is heavily Classic with some Natural, which aren’t significant essences for her. So, while her face is beautiful, when you look at her face and the outfit together, you sense a disconnect.

Below she wears an outfit that’s almost definitely wrong for her color season, but it’s much more harmonious than the blue dress, because it has Dramatic, Gamine, and Ingenue elements:

"Lupita Nyong'o" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The color isn’t vibrant enough to match her skin, but the edgy, playful, and sweet elements are so good—they echo the vibes of her face.

Why I love style analysis

What’s cool about style essences is that when I see Lupita in Dramatic Gamine Ingenue style, she looks so beautiful and fun and moving, it makes me want the Dramatic Gamine Ingenue style type. And when I see Sienna Miller in Natural Classic style, which has an entirely different, so much more understated and laidback vibe (the blue dress above would work for a Natural Classic), Sienna looks so cool and beautiful that I want the Natural Classic style type.

Many of us have some styles we prefer over others. That’s fine. But seeing people like Lupita and Sienna wearing the styles that most flatter them is for me transformative—I’m transported beyond my opinions to a place of greater openness to the different types of beauty. I realize palpably that there’s no best style and no best face.

Often people fear or dislike what they don’t understand. Style analysis facilitates understanding of different types of beauty. And it helps us perceive more beauty in our daily lives.

Can anyone pull off any style?

Yes, depending on how you define “pull off.” I don’t want to tell people what to wear, although arguably that’s exactly what I’m doing. But ultimately beauty is subjective, and people should wear what they want.

Personally, when I see Sienna in the Dramatic Gamine Ingenue dress

and Lupita in the Natural Classic dress

it doesn’t have the same powerful effect as seeing Lupita in her Dramatic Gamine Ingenue style or Sienna in her Natural Classic style. It doesn’t have the same mesmerizing effect as if Sienna was in the blue Natural Classic dress, and Lupita in the Dramatic Gamine Ingenue blazer and dress.

Dramatic—the rule-breaking essence?

Like most celebrities, Lupita doesn’t exclusively wear fashion that embodies her style essences. While she often does wear outfits that have Gamine, Dramatic, Ingenue, or all three, she also frequently wears styles that have a lot of other essences.

This is good—wear what you want. No one should feel they need to always dress by their essences.

Also, of all the types, Dramatics probably have the easiest time looking harmonious in clothes that don’t harmonize with their faces.

This is because the Dramatic vibe can be imposing. It’s like Dramatics are so intimidating, they get to break the rules. Like how a very intimidating person might be able to get away with more rule-breaking, by inspiring fear, than a nice person who’s totally willing to follow the rules and readily accepts consequences.

Again, a face’s vibe doesn’t determine a person’s internal qualities. But because Dramatics can appear intimidating and rule-breaking, people with highly Dramatic faces may have an easier time breaking style essence guidelines while still looking harmonious.

This may also be part of why so many high fashion models are heavily Dramatic—their avant-garde faces enable them to pull off a variety of styles, potentially even those with essences that aren’t in their own faces. (There’s also a lot of other reasons why models often have Dramatic in the modern world—future post topic.)

Gamine—the other rule-breaking essence?

If there’s another essence that has an easier time than most pulling off clothes outside of its own essences, it would likely be Gamine, because Gamines often appear mischievous.

Whereas Dramatics look rule-breaking in an intimidating way, Gamines look rule-breaking in an innocuous, playful way. So when Gamines go outside their essence guidelines, it may come off as a playful choice—and so paradoxically may appear consistent with the playful vibes of their faces.

The other types don’t have this ability so much—refined Classics and sweet Ingenues are easily overwhelmed by elements of other, more intense essences, and so are laidback, carefree Naturals and placid, dreamy Ethereals. And Romantics have an intense vibe whose insistence on glamour and luxury doesn’t leave much room for inconsistent essences.

If you have a lot of Dramatic or Gamine or both, you’ll still ultimately look most harmonious in your own essences—but you may have greater ability than most to wear essence-inconsistent clothing and still appear harmonious.

Liz .
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