2 of 6 body shapes
Pear Body Shape
A pear body shape has hips that are clearly wider than the bust and shoulders, with a defined waist, a fuller seat and thighs, and proportionately slim arms and shoulders, so the body widens from top to bottom like a pear. It's also known as a triangle or A-shape body. Measurements like 34-31-39 or 32-29-37 are typical examples.
What makes it a pear is where the width sits. The hip leads the bust by a clear margin, while the waist, though visible, doesn't cut in as sharply as a bottom hourglass, and the hip curves out smoothly without the high-hip "shelf" of a spoon. This page covers the exact bust-waist-hip pattern behind the shape, how a mild pear differs from a pronounced one, how to tell a pear from a spoon, bottom hourglass or rectangle when your numbers sit close to the line, and what actually works when you get dressed. If you'd rather skip straight to your own answer, the body type calculator gives it in under a minute.
The pear outline: shoulders narrow, waist pulled in, and the amber line flaring out into a hip clearly wider than the bust and shoulders above it.
What Is a Pear Body Shape?
Picture the outline first: shoulders and bust narrower than the hip, a waist that curves in but doesn't cut sharply, and a hip that flares out clearly past everything above it. That's the shape in one sentence — the hip leads by a wide margin, and the waist stops short of the sharp, defined line an hourglass has, which is the detail that separates the two even when they get confused for each other.
The rule this site's calculator uses is a close cousin of the fixed-inch logic explained in detail on the hourglass page: your hip has to sit at least 3.6 in (9 cm) wider than your bust, and your waist has to stay less than 9 in (23 cm) smaller than that same hip. That second part matters just as much as the first — if the waist narrows a full 9 in or more below the hip, the calculator reads the proportions as a "bottom hourglass" instead, even with an identical hip-bust gap. A pear, by this rule, is specifically the hip-led shape with the softer of those two waistlines.
How pronounced that hip-bust gap is varies a lot from one pear to the next, and the types section below breaks that down — a 4 in gap and a 10 in gap are both pears by this rule, provided the waist stays on the soft side, but they don't dress quite the same way. It's also worth knowing up front that a rounded shelf just below the waist, rather than a smooth taper into the hip, usually points to a related but distinct shape called spoon, covered in the borderline section further down.
How to Measure Your Bust, Waist and Hips
The calculator behind this page needs three numbers at minimum — bust, waist and hip — plus an optional high hip that sharpens one specific mix-up. A measurement taken carelessly can tip a genuine pear into a rectangle or bottom-hourglass result, or the other way round. A soft fabric tape and a few minutes in front of a mirror, in your underwear or close-fitting clothes rather than a bulky sweater, is really all it takes.
- Bust — wrap the tape around the fullest part of your chest, level and parallel to the floor all the way round your back. Breathe normally rather than holding your breath, and let the tape rest close without pulling it tight.
- Waist — find the narrowest point of your torso, usually an inch or two above the belly button. If you're not sure where that is, bend gently to one side; the crease that forms marks it. Keep your stomach relaxed.
- Hip — feet together, tape around the widest part of your hips and seat. For a pear this is usually the measurement that decides the result, so it's worth taking twice to be sure.
- High hip (optional) — over the top of the hip bones, where the hip starts to swell, roughly 7 in (18 cm) below the waist — trust the hip bones over the number if your proportions run long or short. Not required for a pear result, but it's the measurement that tells a pear or bottom hourglass apart from a spoon: close to your full hip measurement and clearly fuller than your waist, and you likely have the shelf a spoon adds.
Measure against skin or thin clothing rather than jeans or a coat, and keep the tape snug without compressing anything — the same tension you'd want from a waistband. Stand naturally; sucking in or arching your back changes the number without changing your actual shape. If the hip figure looks off, check that the tape is sitting at the true widest point and not higher, at the waistband line — a common source of a false rectangle result. Once you have your numbers, the body shape calculator female does the rest — the optional field costs nothing to fill in and only makes the result more precise. One field this page doesn't ask you to measure: shoulders. For women, the published method behind this calculator uses bust, waist, high hip and hip only, so a shoulder measurement doesn't change your shape — it only adds a separate shoulder-balance reading alongside your result.
Characteristics of a Pear Shape
The calculator itself is built around bust, waist and hip, with an optional high hip that sharpens one specific mix-up — but a pear build tends to carry a handful of other traits alongside those numbers, the kind of thing you'd notice in a mirror before ever picking up a tape measure. None of these are part of the actual test, and none are required for the label to apply; they're just what the shape tends to look like once you have it:
- Shoulders that sit narrower than the hip, sometimes with a gentle inward slope rather than a square line
- A waist that curves in on its own, though usually less sharply than an hourglass
- Fuller thighs and a fuller seat in proportion with the hip
- Weight gain and loss showing up first in the hip, thigh and lower stomach, and last in the bust or shoulder
Almost nobody fits a single description perfectly, and it's genuinely common to see a little of yourself in a neighbouring shape too:
- Bust and hip close in size, waist sharply nipped — leans hourglass
- Hip wider than bust, but the waist narrows a full 9 in or more below it — leans "bottom hourglass," a defined-waist cousin of pear
- A distinct shelf or ledge at the high hip, about 7 in below the waist — leans spoon
- Bust and hip close in size, with no real waist narrowing either way — leans rectangle
- Fullness sitting at the front of the waist rather than the hip — leans apple
If your own mirror check and the calculator's number-based answer disagree, this is usually why: the required measurements are just bust, waist and hip, and a body can sit close to more than one shape at once. Filling in the optional high hip field usually resolves it. The borderline section below covers this with your own numbers.
How Wide Do Your Hips Need to Be?
If your bust stays the same, this is the smallest hip measurement that still counts as hip-led — pear or bottom hourglass — on this site, at ten common bust sizes. The gap stays a fixed 3.6 in (9 cm) at every size. Whether that hip-led shape reads as a pear specifically then comes down to the waist: under 9 in narrower than the hip keeps it a pear; 9 in or more tips it into a bottom hourglass instead.
| Bust | Hip at least | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| 30 in (76 cm) | 33.6 in (85 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 32 in (81 cm) | 35.6 in (90 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 34 in (86 cm) | 37.6 in (96 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 36 in (91 cm) | 39.6 in (101 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 38 in (97 cm) | 41.6 in (106 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 40 in (102 cm) | 43.6 in (111 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 42 in (107 cm) | 45.6 in (116 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 44 in (112 cm) | 47.6 in (121 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 46 in (117 cm) | 49.6 in (126 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
| 48 in (122 cm) | 51.6 in (131 cm) | 3.6 in (9 cm) |
Because the gap is a fixed number of inches rather than a percentage, it's proportionally a bigger jump at smaller sizes than larger ones — 3.6 in on a 30 in bust is a bigger relative change than the same 3.6 in on a 48 in bust. That's part of why a mild pear becomes more common, not less, at larger sizes.
Pear Body Shape Measurements
There's no single "correct" pear measurement, only a pattern of proportion. Every row below (bust-waist-hip, in inches) clears both conditions above — hip at least 3.6 in past the bust, waist under 9 in narrower than the hip — and comes out as a pear rather than a bottom hourglass, from petite to plus.
| Bust-Waist-Hip | Hip-bust gap | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30-27-35 | 5 in | Petite pear |
| 32-30-37 | 5 in | Slim pear |
| 34-32-39 | 5 in | Classic pear |
| 36-34-41 | 5 in | Classic pear |
| 38-36-44 | 6 in | Full pear |
| 40-38-46 | 6 in | Curvy pear |
| 44-42-50 | 6 in | Plus-size pear |
Measuring tip: bust at the fullest point of the chest, waist at the narrowest point above the navel, hip at the widest part of the seat with feet together. Full walkthrough in the body measurements guide.
Types of Pear Shape
A pear isn't one fixed silhouette — how wide the hip sits past the bust changes what actually works when you get dressed. This site groups it into three rough bands by that hip-bust gap, rather than by dress size, since the gap is what the styling advice below is really responding to.
The hip is wider, but only just past the 3.6 in line that separates a pear from a rectangle. This is the band closest to that boundary, and the one most likely to get misread by a quiz that uses a percentage rule instead of a fixed gap. Styling can lean lighter-handed here — small proportion adjustments do most of the work.
The textbook version, and the one most styling guides are actually describing when they say "pear." The hip clearly leads, the waist is present without being sharply cut, and the balance principle covered in the dressing section below applies close to word for word.
A wider gap again, sometimes paired with a shorter waist-to-hip distance that some styling guides separately call a "bell" shape. The same balance principle still applies, just with more deliberate volume up top to keep the proportion from reading as top-versus-bottom rather than one continuous line.
Wherever you land, this is a spectrum rather than three hard boxes — a 5.5 in gap sits between mild and classic and can be styled as either. If your result looks close to a boundary, the section below covers what to do about it.
Am I a Pear? Reading a Borderline Result
A calculator gives a single answer, but plenty of real bodies sit close enough to a boundary that the "correct" label depends on which inch you measured. Here's what actually separates a pear from the three shapes people confuse it with most.
This is the closest mix-up of all, because the hip condition is identical: hip at least 3.6 in past the bust, either way. The waist is what splits them. A pear's waist stays present but doesn't narrow a full 9 in below the hip; once it does, the exact same hip-bust proportions read as a "bottom hourglass" instead — a defined-waist cousin of pear rather than a different shape entirely. If your waist looks fairly nipped in the mirror but your calculator result still says pear, it's likely sitting just under that 9 in line.
Regular hourglass adds a second condition pear doesn't have to meet: the bust and hip themselves need to be close in size (bust no more than about 1 in bigger than the hip, hip less than 3.6 in bigger than the bust) as well as a sharply defined waist. If your bust and hip are close but your waist is dramatically nipped, that's hourglass. If your hip pulls clearly ahead of your bust, you're in pear or bottom-hourglass territory instead, whatever the waist is doing.
Both have the hip wider than the bust, and both can have a fairly defined waist. Spoon adds a rounded shelf at the high hip — a measurement roughly 7 in below the waist that sits close to the full hip measurement and clearly fuller than the waist — a distinct ledge rather than a smooth taper. Run a hand down your side from waist to hip: a pear keeps widening at roughly the same rate the whole way down, while a spoon has a noticeable step partway. Full breakdown on the spoon body shape page.
The waist can look similarly soft on both, so the hip-bust gap is what actually decides it: a pear's hip sits at least 3.6 in past the bust; a rectangle's bust and hip stay closer than that in both directions. If your hip is only an inch or two wider than your bust, that result is more likely rectangle with a fuller lower half than a true pear.
If your own mirror check and the calculator disagree by a small margin, trust a careful re-measurement over either one alone — the most common cause is the hip tape sitting too high, at the waistband line, rather than at the true widest point.
How to Dress a Pear Shaped Body
One idea drives almost everything below: build width and interest above the waist, and keep the lower half quiet and simple. A pear's hip is already the widest point of the frame, so the job of an outfit isn't to hide it — it's to stop it being the only thing the eye lands on, by giving the shoulders and bust enough presence to balance it.
In practice that means two things working at once. Above the waist: structure, brightness, pattern, and a wider neckline or sleeve — anything that adds visual width to the shoulder line. Below the waist: dark, plain and close to the body without clinging, fabric that skims over the hip and thigh rather than adding volume there, since extra bulk in that half only widens the gap the outfit is trying to balance.
The waist itself is usually already defined on a pear, so unlike some other shapes this isn't about creating a waistline — it's about making sure the eye reaches it, rather than stopping at the hip below.
A dropped shoulder and a crew neck give the top of the frame no width at all, and a hem running past the hip adds length exactly where the eye should stop.
A boat or square neckline widens the shoulder line on its own, and a hem stopping above the widest part of the hip keeps the outfit's focus on the half that's already doing the work.
- Boat, square or off-shoulder necklines that widen the shoulder line
- Structured seams, shoulder detail or a bright pattern concentrated on top
- A hem that ends at or above the widest point of the hip
- Narrow straps or a plain crew neck with no shoulder detail at all
- A hem that runs past the hip and adds length there
- Horizontal stripes or heavy print sitting below the waist
Boat, square and off-shoulder do the most work, since they add width right at the shoulder. A halter narrows that same line, so it's the one to balance with a fuller sleeve or a structured bodice rather than wear plain.
Puff, flutter and structured shoulders all add volume exactly where a pear benefits from it. A raglan or dropped shoulder does the opposite, narrowing the line further, so it's worth balancing with a wide neckline or bright colour up top if you wear one.
A straight, clinging cut follows the hip outward with nothing above to balance it, so the silhouette reads as one continuous wide shape rather than a proportioned outfit.
A fitted, detailed bodice with a wide neckline gives the top of the outfit presence, while the skirt flares from the hip instead of clinging to it.
- A-line or fit-and-flare cuts that skim, rather than cling to, the hip
- Structure, pattern or embellishment concentrated on the bodice
- A wrap or defined waist, since a pear's waist is worth showing
- Bodycon or straight sheath cuts that cling at the hip
- Heavy pockets or pleating sitting right on the hip bone
- A plain, unstructured bodice with all the interest below the waist
A close cut through the hip, especially with pockets or seams drawing the eye there, puts extra attention exactly on the part of the frame already carrying the most width.
A high waistband marks the waist, and a smooth, dark, unembellished flare lets the skirt skim past the hip rather than framing it.
- A-line, full or circle skirts that flare smoothly from a high waistband
- Plain, dark or matte fabric through the hip and thigh
- Knee-to-midi length, which keeps the flare from adding width lower down
- Pencil or bodycon cuts that cling at the widest point
- Pockets, pleats or embellishment placed right at the hip
- Shiny or stiff fabric that stands away from the body and adds bulk
No shoulder detail and no waist definition together let the hip read as the widest, and only, point of interest in the outfit.
A wide collar or boat neckline widens the shoulder, and a shirt fitted through the body with a hem ending above the hip keeps the waist visible rather than lost under loose fabric.
A heavy, hip-length hem sits right over the widest point and adds bulk there rather than balancing it from above.
A lighter knit with structure at the shoulder and a hem stopping at the hip bone, not below it, keeps the volume where it helps rather than where it doesn't.
A tapered leg narrows toward the ankle, which by contrast makes the hip and thigh above it look wider still, and pocket detail there draws extra attention.
A straight or gently widening leg keeps one continuous line from hip to floor, and a dark, unpatterned fabric lets it skim rather than cling.
A light wash reflects more light and reads as visually larger, and oversized or high-set back pockets add width right where the hip is already fullest.
A dark, even wash slims by contrast, and small, flat, centrally placed back pockets keep the eye from settling on the hip.
The same rise and leg-shape rules apply to jeans as to any other trouser, but denim adds one more lever worth using: pocket size and placement. A back pocket set high and close to the centre reads smaller than one set low and wide, regardless of the jean's actual cut.
A hem that stops right at the widest point of the hip frames it like a horizontal line drawn under the word "here."
A notched lapel and padded shoulder widen the top of the frame, and a hem that stops before the hip line avoids drawing a border around it.
No shoulder line and a hem stopping right at the hip give the coat nothing to balance with and a border to frame the widest point.
A defined shoulder balances the frame from above, and a length that runs past the widest point of the hip, to roughly mid-thigh, avoids stopping right on it.
Between a cropped jacket and a mid-thigh coat, the one length to be most careful with is anything ending exactly at the hip bone — that's the one spot on the body a hemline shouldn't stop.
The same logic carries over to one-piece and two-piece basics. High-waisted, tailored shorts in a dark, plain fabric do for the leg what straight trousers do; a bright or detailed top worn with them keeps the balance the right way round. For jumpsuits and playsuits, look for a wide neckline or structured shoulder up top and a straight or gently flared leg — a very fitted leg has the same effect as skinny jeans, narrowing right where the outfit needs the least narrowing.
A swimsuit or bikini top with structure, print or a halter or bandeau shape adds presence above the waist, and a dark, plain bottom keeps the hip quiet — the same balance the rest of this guide describes, just in two pieces. For activewear, a patterned or brightly coloured sports bra paired with a plain dark legging or short follows the identical principle.
The single most common fit complaint for this shape: trousers or a skirt sized to fit the hip stand away from the waist, sometimes by a couple of inches. It happens because most ready-to-wear is cut for a straighter body, so a garment sized to your hip is, almost by definition, too big at your narrower waist. A contoured or stretch waistband fixes it without alteration; failing that, a tailor taking in just the waistband is a small, inexpensive fix that solves it for good. The fuller fit problems section below covers the rest of what tends to go wrong and what to do about it.
Pear Outfit Ideas
General advice is only useful up to a point; sometimes it helps more to see how it comes together in a real outfit. These are starting points, not a uniform, and every one of them can be adjusted for your own taste or your own version of "smart" or "casual".
- Casual — a bright or patterned boat-neck top tucked into dark, high-rise straight-leg jeans, with plain trainers so the eye doesn't drift lower than it needs to.
- Office or work — a structured blazer over a fitted blouse, tucked into tailored high-rise trousers in a dark, plain fabric, with low heels or loafers.
- Evening — a fit-and-flare dress with a detailed or structured bodice and a wide neckline, simple earrings that draw the eye up further, and a clutch rather than a bag that adds bulk at the hip.
- Summer — an off-shoulder or square-neck top with a full, dark A-line skirt, or a printed halter one-piece; sandals and minimal lower-body layering keep the proportions clean in the heat.
- Winter — a structured, belted coat that falls to mid-thigh over a bright knit and straight-leg trousers, since the coat's own shoulder line carries the balance through the outermost layer.
Petite and Plus-Size Pear
A pear shape is a pattern of proportion, not a size or a height, and it shows up at every point on both scales. A petite pear has the same hip-bust relationship as any other, just on a smaller frame; the main practical difference is that ready-to-wear proportioned for an average height can put a skirt's flare or a jacket's hem at the wrong point entirely, so it's worth checking hem length against your own hip line rather than a size label, and having it shortened if it lands mid-hip instead of above or well below it.
A plus-size pear follows exactly the same rule, just at larger measurements, and the same 3.6-inch hip-bust gap applies at any size, as the table further up this page shows. The main fit challenge tends to be availability rather than the shape itself: extended sizing doesn't always keep the same shoulder structure and waist shaping as the smaller sizes in a range, so it's worth specifically looking for brands that carry structured-shoulder tops and defined-waist bottoms through their full size range, rather than assuming a boxier cut is the only plus-size option.
Common Fit Problems and Solutions
Most of the fit complaints particular to this shape come from the same root cause: a lot of ready-to-wear is drafted for a straighter body, so anything sized to fit your widest point is often loose at your narrower ones.
| Problem | Why it happens | What tends to help |
|---|---|---|
| Hips fit, waist gapes or slides down | Garment sized to your larger hip measurement | A contoured or stretch waistband, or a tailor taking in just the waist |
| Waist fits, hips and thighs feel tight | Garment sized to your smaller waist measurement | Size up and have the waist taken in, or choose a style with stretch through the hip |
| Tops look shapeless or swallow the shoulders | An oversized cut with no shoulder structure | A fitted or structured-shoulder style, or a wide neckline that defines the shoulder line on its own |
| Jackets add bulk instead of balancing it | A cropped hem landing exactly at the widest hip point | A length that ends above the hip, or one that runs well past it to mid-thigh |
None of this means the shape is hard to dress; it just means the hip usually needs separate attention from the waist, rather than assuming one size will handle both. A tailor who can take in a waistband is one of the more useful, and often cheaper than expected, resources for this shape specifically.
What Can Change Your Pear Shape
- Bone structure — sets the width of your shoulders and hips and is fixed after puberty; it doesn't change with diet or exercise.
- Weight change — a pear build tends to gain and lose weight first at the hip, thigh and lower stomach, so the hip-bust gap can become more, or less, pronounced with a sustained change in either direction.
- Pregnancy and childbirth — can widen the hips further and change the waist-to-hip ratio permanently.
- Hormonal changes — puberty, contraception and menopause all shift where fat is stored, and fat storage commonly moves toward the waist after menopause, softening a pear's own waist definition somewhat.
- Muscle and posture — building the shoulders and upper back changes visible proportions without changing bone width, which is one reason upper-body strength training is often suggested for this shape specifically.
None of this is something to chase for its own sake — a body's shape isn't a problem to correct — but it's worth knowing what does and doesn't move the numbers if you're trying to understand a change you're already seeing. Worth re-checking the calculator any time your measurements change.
Is the Pear Shape Attractive?
Yes, by the same evidence usually cited for this question — with the same caveats that evidence actually carries. A pear's waist-to-hip ratio typically sits somewhere in the 0.65 to 0.75 range, and some perception studies have reported a ratio near that range as widely rated attractive, with early researchers proposing it as a signal of fertility.
That proposal has been re-examined more critically since: a 2019 systematic review in Frontiers in Psychology (Bovet) looked back over that evidence and found it insufficient to conclude that a low waist-to-hip ratio reliably signals health or fertility. So the honest answer is two-layered — a pear-typical ratio does show up repeatedly in attractiveness research, but the deeper claim that this makes it a health marker isn't as settled as some styling guides suggest. What isn't contested is the health side taken on its own terms: fat stored at the hip and thigh (gynoid fat) sits under the skin rather than around the organs, and WHO guidelines treat a lower waist-to-hip ratio as the lower-risk pattern for cardiovascular and metabolic disease compared with fat carried at the waist.
Worth adding some scale to that: the same widely cited UK body-scan study behind this site's shape research (University College London and the London College of Fashion, 6,000 women) found rectangle the most common outline at 46%, with a hip-led "bottom-heavy" group — pear and spoon together — close behind at just over 20%, ahead of hourglass at roughly 8%. So a pear shape isn't a rare or unusual result; it's one of the two most common outlines that study found.
Whatever any of that means for how a body is perceived, it doesn't make one shape more "correct" than another — see the waist to hip ratio calculator for what that one number can and can't tell you about your own body. And if thinking about your shape is causing you ongoing distress rather than just curiosity, that's worth raising with a doctor or counsellor rather than something a page like this can resolve.
Pear vs Other Body Shapes
| Shape | Bust vs hip | Waist | Key difference from pear |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pear | Hip at least 3.6 in wider | Present, not sharply defined | — |
| Bottom hourglass | Hip at least 3.6 in wider | Sharply defined (9 in+ narrower than hip) | Same hip-bust gap as pear; only the waist is sharper |
| Hourglass | Close to equal | Sharply defined | No hip-forward lean; bust and hip balance each other instead |
| Spoon | Hip clearly wider | Defined (7 in+ narrower than hip) | A high-hip shelf a smooth pear taper doesn't have |
| Rectangle | Close to equal, under 3.6 in either way | Not defined | Missing the hip-bust gap a pear depends on |
| Inverted triangle | Bust at least 3.6 in wider | Not sharply defined | Opposite emphasis entirely — the bust leads, not the hip |
| Apple | Varies | The fullest measurement | Fullness sits at the waist, not the hip |
See every shape compared side by side on the body shapes chart.
More Tools and Guides
Tools
- Body shape calculator femaleFull 8-shape result with a fit guide, not just a pear check.
- Body visualizerHeight, weight and measurements as a 3D body.
- Waist to hip ratio calculatorCheck this one number on its own.
Guides
- Body shapesEvery shape on one chart, with a comparison tool.
- Body measurementsHow to measure yourself accurately.
- Spoon body shapeThe shape most often confused with a pear.
Common Myths About the Pear Shape
| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| A pear always has a dramatically tiny waist | It's closer to the opposite: the waist specifically needs to stay under 9 in narrower than the hip. A waist that narrows 9 in or more below the hip doesn't disqualify the curve, it just moves the label to "bottom hourglass" instead, with the same hip-bust proportions. |
| Pear shape always means a small bust | The bust just has to be narrower than the hip by the fixed gap; it doesn't have to be small in absolute terms. A fuller bust that's still outsized by the hip is a pear as much as a slim one is. |
| The goal when dressing a pear is to hide the hips | Concealment isn't really the mechanism. Every styling principle on this page works by adding balance above the waist, not by shrinking or covering anything below it. |
| Certain clothes can change your body shape | Clothing shifts how the eye reads proportion; it doesn't move where your body actually carries weight. See what can change your pear shape further up this page for what genuinely does. |
Pear Body Shape FAQ
What is a pear body shape?
Is a pear shaped body attractive?
Is pear the most common body shape?
What is a good waist-to-hip ratio for a pear shape?
What is the difference between pear and bottom hourglass?
What is the difference between pear and hourglass?
What is the difference between pear and spoon?
What is the difference between pear and rectangle?
What are the best dresses for a pear shaped body?
What are the best jeans for a pear shaped body?
How do I know I'm a pear shape without measuring?
Can you be plus-size and have a pear shape?
Can someone be between two body shapes?
Can exercise change a pear shape?
Why do my trousers fit my hips but gape at the waist?
Is the pear shape the same classification for men?
Method and Sources
- Lee, J.Y., Istook, C.L., Nam, Y.J. and Park, S.M. (2007). Comparison of body shape between USA and Korean women. International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, 19(5), 374 to 391. Source of the shape formulas used on this page, including the exact pear, bottom-hourglass and spoon cut-offs used by the calculator this page describes.
- Simmons, K., Istook, C.L. and Devarajan, P. (2004). Female Figure Identification Technique (FFIT) for apparel. Journal of Textile and Apparel Technology and Management. The 3D body-scan foundation the 2007 shape formulas above were built on.
- McCormick, H. (2005). The shape of things to wear: scientists identify how women's figures have changed. The Independent, reporting a University College London and London College of Fashion study of 6,000 women's body scans. Source of the 46% rectangle and just-over-20% pear-and-spoon ("bottom-heavy") figures.
- Bovet, J. (2019). Evolutionary theories and men's preferences for women's waist-to-hip ratio: which hypotheses remain? A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 10:1221.
- World Health Organization (2008). Waist Circumference and Waist-Hip Ratio: Report of a WHO Expert Consultation.
- The dressing guidance above reflects common tailoring and styling practice, not measured research.