Your eyes can deceive you

I know that certain styles don't flatter me, especially now that I'm a woman of a certain age and not as slim as I was. Being only 5 feet and a bit, I have learnt over the years how to dress to make myself look slimmer and taller, however sometimes you just want to wear an outfit even if it's not necessarily a good look on you. I've spoken before about loving stripes, so it wasn't surprising that I was tempted into buying a striped top on our recent visit to Murcia. I am of course talking about horizontal stripes, that don't draw the eyes down like vertical stripes do. Fashion rules, of course, are meant to be broken aren't they?

I was very happy wearing this outfit, but I'm sure you will agree that it makes my top half look bigger than my bottom half and I don't look tall and slim in it.  Not that I really care!  However when I went out to lunch I added a cascade cardigan, which totally changed my look and made me appear a bit slimmer. Of course if I had worn a darker cardigan or jacket, it would have had a greater slimming effect.

Another option would have been to wear a long, brightly coloured pendant or scarf to break the vast expanse of horizontal stripes and draw the eyes downward.  I could also have worn lighter coloured trousers so that the break wasn't as obvious.  Do you know of any similar tricks to deceive the eyes and create a more flattering outfit?