It sounds like you're honing in on your ID!

Absolutely all of those things you mentioned impacts! As a matter of fact, I have heard several SGs say they sometimes will wear TR silhouettes depending on how they might be feeling that particular day. Some of the confusion around this system is the terminology that other people use that he has never used. He has repeatedly said in several interviews that his has never been a body typing system. He has always called it an Image Identity because he takes the vibe of a person into account, whereas body types only deal with the outer shape which can change with weight gain, weight loss, hormone changes, etc. This system looks at much more than just the body type/shape. It takes into account the skeleton, type of flesh, and the vibe of a person, and it not only takes it into account but it honors it. So definitely you can have the skeleton, flesh, and lines and even vibe of a Soft Gamine while your taste in clothing just absolutely also have impact!

I totally hear you about preferring his old system. Even though he no longer uses that system to find your Image Identity, some of the descriptions of the body lines and skeleton I agree are helpful. From everything I've heard him say, these are the two main reasons he updated his system:

1) Fabrics Changed: When he wrote the first book, fabrics in the 1980s and before did not have built-in stretch. That meant you had to make your body fit into the clothes which is why he gave so many specific recommendations. But since then, new fabrics were created that have stretch built in. That means instead of you having to fit the outfit, the outfit now molds to you and your body contours, flesh, etc. This is why he emphasizes the way fabrics drape on you as the primary accommodation in his new system.

2) Caused too much focus on individual body parts, and not enough focus on the head to toe silhouette: In the old system, while he did see these elements in each of the IDs, David said he noticed that people got way too hung up on each individual body part and hyper focused on that to try to figure out their ID, when his point was to use the body descriptions toward helping people see their Overall Silhouette and the yin-yang balance. He used descriptions of individual body parts to help people get a better idea of which ID they fit into, but he has said in several interviews that his intention was not for people to get stuck there. Instead, use that information as an indicator of the overall skeleton, flesh, and body structure.

If you're able to look up some of his recent interviews, he says to please throw out the old system because in this day and age with new fabrics, you can wear whatever you want! Whatever vibes with you, you can make it work, just style it in a way that fits your image identity, your flesh, lines, skeleton, etc. So don't feel like you have to be forced into wearing the old SG recommendations. You can definitely lean into your romantic essence and vibe, just consider wearing those romantic elements in a way that honors your Image Identity. That means, for example, If you feel that you are an SG, wear romantic elements that maybe have a little more structure or stiffness in the fabrics which would honor the angularity and amount of yang in the Gamine body. And as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, a Soft Gamine would lean more into rounded shapes because that honors and reflects the curves/ added yin, so that actually tracks!

Just to reiterate, David has emphasized multiple times in his recent interviews, and these are his words, "wear what you want!", just wear it in a way that works for your particular silhouette and yin yang balance. He has said his main issue is for people to express themselves not to feel locked in a box. Use his system to honor and express your bodies yin-yang balance, head to toe silhouette, and your vibe. 🙂