What to wear for Romantic, Ingenue, and Ethereal

Do purely “yin” faces exist? And what do they wear?

In both faces and fashion, the three curving style essences can look extremely similar.

This post explores Romantic, Ingenue, and Ethereal fashion and provides tips for determining an outfit’s essences.

Romantic fashion

Romantic fashion epitomizes femininity and conventional sexiness—it’s often revealing, fitted, and very curvy in shape.

But not all curve-hugging, sexy clothes are Romantic.

A striped tube top paired with fitted denim cutoffs is tight, revealing, and curve-emphasizing but likely won’t have any Romantic at all.

To feel Romantic, an outfit must also exude glamour, dressiness, or elaborateness. This might be achieved through luxurious fabrics (like silk or velvet), embellishments like jewels or rhinestones, or circular shapes built into the garment itself, like a sweetheart neckline.

Highly Romantic styles are pieces you could wear to a really fancy event that may feel way too dressed up for every day.

I overuse the word “glamour” when describing Romantic—it’s a good descriptor, and fashion described as “glam” is often Romantic. But there’s other great words that capture Romantic beauty, like alluring, seductive, smoldering, and passionate.

Ingenue fashion

Ingenue fashion is also highly feminine. But compared to Romantic, Ingenue is more modest. Ingenue fashion tends not to be as tightly fitted to the body and usually has less revealing necklines.

Sometimes Ingenue does have short hemlines in dresses and skirts, but these skirts typically flow away from the body rather than being fitted, and the overall vibe will feel youthful rather than sexy.

Ingenue style often appear appropriate both for adults and younger people, even children, whereas Romantic fashion reads as more grown up.

So one way to differentiate Romantic and Ingenue is to ask if a dress would look appropriate on, say, a toddler if it was shrunk down to toddler size. If the answer is a resounding yes, the outfit may have a ton of Ingenue. If it’s a resounding no, it’s probably not a purely Ingenue look.

In some ways, the difference between Ingenue and Romantic is also a difference in intensity.

Romantic’s vibe is characteristically more intense, less restrained, more elaborate, more over the top. Ingenue’s vibe is more gentle and delicate. Compared to Romantic, Ingenue won’t appear as luxurious.

“Sweet” is probably my most overused Ingenue descriptor. Other words that capture Ingenue beauty—pretty, dainty, delicate, and demure.

Ethereal fashion

Ethereal fashion tends to have longer shapes than both Romantic and Ingenue, especially in hemlines. With Ethereal, we see narrow, elongated curves and gentle, flowy draping.

Sleeveless styles or very long sleeves can be Ethereal. Short sleeves aren’t typically Ethereal but can be if they have narrow draping. For Ethereal short sleeves, look for things like “flutter sleeves” or “short bell sleeves.”

Ethereal styles also often have elements that evoke otherworldliness. This can be achieved by sheer fabric, shimmer, or other elements that create an extremely gentle, light-as-air feeling.

Highly Ethereal styles feel angelic, mystical, diaphanous, and dreamy.

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Here’s examples of outfits that blend the curving essences, with explanations of which elements manifest which essences.

Romantic Ethereal fashion

If the purely Romantic burgundy dress above had a child with the long flowy white Ethereal dress, this could be the result.

Romantic elements: bright red (a passionate color), plunging curving neckline, cold shoulder neckline

Ethereal elements: elongated silhouette and flowy fabric

The dress doesn’t have significant Ingenue or other essences.

If you have a lot of Romantic and Ethereal, this dress is made for you.

Ethereal Ingenue fashion

We still have a long, flowy Ethereal dress, but now instead of a sexy, alluring vibe, we see a sweet, very delicate vibe.

Ethereal elements: sheer fabric, elongated silhouette, long and slightly full (vs. tight) sleeves

Ingenue elements: ruffles (at the waist, sleeves, and hem), fuller skirt, delicate polka dots

Don’t be thrown off by: the V-neckline. Style essences in outfits (and in faces) tend to be more about the figurative vibes rather than all the details of the literal shapes. While a sharp V-neck sometimes does bring in Dramatic, the overall vibe of this dress is dreamy and sweet. It’s not at all intimidating or imposing. The neckline is also created by overlapping pieces of sheer polka-dotted fabric, so with the fabric’s gentleness, it’s just not enough to read as intimidating and Dramatic.

Romantic Ingenue fashion

This dress has a lot of Ingenue—a small delicate print, gentle pastel color, and smocked top. But the way it hugs the body’s curves throughout, while also appearing both dressed-up and grown-up, is characteristic of Romantic.

Who can harmoniously wear these dresses?

Interestingly, while there are plenty of dresses in the world that are purely Romantic, purely Ethereal, or purely Ingenue, and plenty of dresses that blend two of those essences together, I can’t yet say the same about faces.

That’s because I haven’t yet found anyone who I consider to have purely Romantic or purely Ingenue. Although I have found one celebrity, Masha Tyelna, who I consider purely Ethereal.

And I haven’t yet found anyone who has the Romantic Ingenue type, the Romantic Ethereal type, or Ethereal Ingenue type.

But I have found all of these essence blends with other essences added, including Classic. Here’s visual examples of Romantic Ethereal Classic, Romantic Ingenue Classic, and Ethereal Classic Ingenue celebrities.

Do purely yin faces exist?

Yes—a number of celebrities have the Romantic Ethereal Ingenue (REI) type. Some of the REI celebrities I’ve found are pure REI, while some also have small amounts of a fourth essence.

I’m not sure why it seems rare to have only curving or “yin” essences.

In a way, though, it works out, because modern fashion tends to be highly casual and sometimes androgynous.

How to wear purely yin dresses

If you’re, say, a Romantic Natural Gamine, you can still be harmonious in a purely Romantic dress. You can add in Natural and Gamine in your hair, accessories, and makeup.

You can also take advantage of layering. If you layer a Natural Gamine denim jacket over a Romantic dress, it can make your overall look a lot more casual.

Also free to fully embrace your curving essences and style them in a way that exudes more of their dressiness and glamour. Casual fashion isn’t superior (unless you’re going rock-climbing or something), even though it’s what we’re mostly used to seeing.

What about in cold weather?

Another problem highly yin faces can have, aside from feeling overdressed, is what to wear in cold weather. Most of the examples in this post are dresses that have a warm weather vibe because of fabric, cut, color, or print.

To adequately address this question is beyond the scope of this post, but the most obvious solution is that because most people have either Classic or least one “yang” or straight-lined essence—Dramatic, Natural, or Gamine—you can rely on finding warm weather clothing that manifests your Classic or “yang” essence, as there are many coat, jacket, sweater, boot, and pant options for all of these. Then you could incoporate your yin essence in the clothes you layer under these pieces, or in your makeup, hair, or accessories.

But obviously that’s not helpful for Romantic Ethereal Ingenues. So a future post will have a more comprehensive answer. :)