A Penny For My Thoughts

TIP OF THE WEEK // Posing on the runway

This week’s tip is pretty much visual.

I’m showing you some examples of poses that may happen to be seen on the runway. The following are all very nicely done poses, and work quite well with this outfit. Indeed, there’s no texture distorsion, prims are for the most part displayed correctly and not sinking in other prims or body parts. However, the point of this post is to show how some poses may look good at first sight but they are not really perfect or realistic for a specific outfit if we pay closer attention to details.

I’m wearing a mini dress from the latest Spring collection by Baiastice and I styled it quite funky, with Schimdt boots and a cute neck piece that was part of an old outfit by Beauty Avatar (now Glam Affair). Take your time to study the following poses…

Pose no.1    Dare - Black Cross

Pose no.2    Del May - Balletic Stand

Pose no.3    Corpus - Model 055

Pose no.4    Exposeur - Twisted Motion 2

Pose no.5    Di’s Opera - Contour Line 2 pose 5

All good?  Well, not to me.

The first pose actually works nicely with this outfit and it shows it well. I noticed a minor detail that is indicated in the picture. Wrists look a bit distorted and hands are sinking slightly in cuffs. This may be easily fixed by moving cuffs up along the forearms. Beside that, what doesn’t really convince me about this pose is the attitude. The pose is nearly perfect itself, but I don’t believe it emotes well the “funky” attitude I was looking for when I styled this outfit:

I don’t like the following pose with this outfit. First of all, head is tilted back and face is hidden. Moreover, if you carefully check feet, you will notice I am standing on one foot only. You will never see a runway model in rl posing in this complex motion pose and keeping balance on one foot! I think this is a perfect pose for an editorial as it captures a motion,  but I would never use this pose on the runway, at least with this type of outfit:

The following, no.3, is my winning pose.  It fits the outfit correctly, shows well dress, accessories, and face. I am standing still with both feet on ground, and this pose is emoting my outfit showing some funky attitude that I was looking for:

Lately I sadly noticed that dramatic, editorial-like poses are very often used by runway models in the wrong way. A pose like the following may be acceptable if show concept demands artistic and out-of-the-box poses, or it may perfectly work with some avant-garde outfits. Here I was looking for a funky feeling, but  this pose is too much. Besides, you will notice this pose tilts neck too much with the result that collar piece sinks. It looks unnatural. Face is not shown well, and I also don’t like how sleeves are displayed. They are soft big sleeves that are supposed to “lay” on forearms, and not float as with this pose.

The last pose shows well shoes and sleeves, however, being a side pose, collar and the front of the top are completely hidden. A minor imperfection is a fingertip slightly sinking in clothing. All in all, this pose emotes really well, so I would probably use it on the runway only if I could combine it with a good front pose, like no.3 .

Conclusion   Each outfit has its own emotion, attitude, and feeling. And very often different stylings create different emotions. Whenever is possible, let’s try to pick runway poses that fulfill all the following: are technically perfect, display the outfit at the best and correctly, and emote the outfit to visually show its attitude.