Apple body shape

Why this shape was missing

The 2004 FFIT work defined nine shapes including Diamond and Oval. The 2007 formula set — the one calculator.net publishes — expressed seven of them as rules that assumed the waist is smaller than the bust; under those formulas a waist larger than the hips can return Rectangle, Triangle or Inverted Triangle depending on the other numbers, or match nothing. Sokolowski and Bettencourt (2020) documented this on plus-size scans, reintroduced Oval and Diamond into the formulas, and added lower bounds of zero to the Triangle, Inverted Triangle and Rectangle rules. This site runs the revised set. A different result from another calculator for a waist larger than the hips can reflect the 2007 formulas.

The two apple shapes

Oval versus Diamond

Both require the waist circumference to exceed the hips. The difference is the bust: Oval requires the waist to be no larger than the bust; Diamond requires the waist to exceed the bust as well. The two are adjacent, and the threshold between them is the point where waist and bust are equal. Both are checked after every other rule, so an earlier rule — Top hourglass, or Triangle’s second clause — can match first.

The boundary with rectangle

Rectangle requires the waist to be no larger than the bust or hips, with bust and hips less than 3.6 inches apart and no earlier rule matching. With a bust of 41 inches and hips of 40, a waist of 39.6 returns Rectangle and a waist of 40.4 returns Oval — a change of about 2 cm. The calculator’s stability note reports this distance for your own numbers; if it is small, measure the waist again at the point described on the measuring page before treating either result as settled.

The naming problem, from the other side

“Apple” is used differently across styling guides and calculators. This site uses it as a common-name grouping for Oval and Diamond; some other calculators use it for Inverted Triangle. Oval requires waist circumference to exceed hip circumference while remaining no larger than the bust; Diamond requires the waist to exceed both. Calculator results always use the FFIT category names. A page titled “what to wear for an apple shape” may therefore be about either; check which the guide means.

What the label does not mean

It is a relationship between three circumferences. It does not measure or imply weight, health, or where the width sits front to back, and it is not a category the other shapes are measured against. The outfits page lists options such as a longer line through the middle or a higher waistband; they are preferences, not instructions.

• Styling direction: apple outfits
• On the boundary: apple vs rectangle
• The other “apple”: inverted triangle

References

The rules and figures on this page come from the sources below. Reference values are conventions from the literature, not targets.

1. Simmons, Istook & Devarajan (2004). Female Figure Identification Technique (FFIT) for Apparel, Part I: Describing Female ShapesJournal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management 4(1):1–16 · JTATM 4(1)Defines the nine FFIT shapes (hourglass, top and bottom hourglass, spoon, triangle, inverted triangle, rectangle, diamond, oval) from bust, waist, high-hip and hip circumferences on 3D body scans of North American women. The rules on this site are this set, as later revised.
2. Sokolowski (2020). Modification of the Female Figure Identification Technique (FFIT) Formulas to Include Plus Size Bodies3DBODY.TECH 2020 Conference Proceedings · proc.3dbody.tech/2020Shows the 2007 FFIT formulas assumed the waist is smaller than the bust and so failed on many larger bodies; adds the Diamond and Oval rules and a ≥ 0 lower bound to Triangle, Inverted Triangle and Rectangle. This site uses the revised formulas.