Apple vs rectangle

“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.

What separates the results

Rectangle needs the waist to be no larger than either the bust or the hips: its lower bounds of zero on bust − waist and hips − waist are part of the rule. Oval and Diamond need the waist to be larger than the hips. So the immediate difference is whether the waist exceeds the hips — but only after the rules above have been checked. Top hourglass, for example, has no condition on hips − waist, so a body with a bust more than an inch over the hips, a 9-inch bust-to-waist drop and a waist slightly larger than the hips returns Top hourglass, not Oval. Triangle’s second clause (bust smaller than waist, waist no larger than hips) sits on the other side of this boundary: it requires hips − waist ≥ 0, so it cannot match a waist larger than the hips.

The conditions, in full

A worked example

Hold the bust at 41 inches and the hips at 40. With a waist of 39.6, bust − waist is 1.4 and hips − waist is 0.4: both non-negative, both under their limits, bust and hips 1 inch apart, no earlier rule matching — Rectangle. With a waist of 40.4, hips − waist is −0.4: Rectangle’s lower bound fails, no earlier rule matches, waist ≤ bust — Oval. The change is 0.8 inches, about 2 cm, in the waist. The calculator’s stability note reports exactly this kind of distance for your own numbers.

Which measurement to take again

The one the stability note names. Take it at the point this site’s measuring page describes, not at the level where a waistband sits, and read it twice. If your two readings fall on either side of your hip measurement, the classification is sensitive to how you measured, and the honest summary is that waist and hips are close in circumference; the label is less informative than that fact.

Why another calculator may give a different result

Some calculators reproduce the 2007 FFIT formulas — calculator.net publishes that set — which have no lower bounds on the waist differences and no Oval or Diamond rule. Under those formulas a waist larger than the hips can return Rectangle, Triangle or Inverted Triangle depending on the other numbers, or match nothing. The 2020 revision this site runs adds the lower bounds and the two rules. A different result elsewhere can reflect a different formula set or rule order, or an input close to a threshold.

Does the result change the outfit options?

Near this boundary the measurable fact is that waist and hips are close in circumference, on whichever side of the threshold the result lands. The apple outfits page lists options organised around that — a longer line through the middle, or a waistband placed higher — and the rectangle page includes both a belt at the point you find narrowest and the option of leaving the line straight. All of them are choices, not requirements.

• Apple (Oval and Diamond) · Rectangle
• Reading the waist consistently: how to measure

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.
3. Gordon et al. (2014). ANSUR II: 2012 Anthropometric Survey of U.S. Army Personnel — public working databasesU.S. Army Natick Soldier RDEC / Penn State OPEN Design Lab · ANSUR II Female PublicUsed only to test how sensitive the FFIT labels are to small measurement changes (median 2.4 cm to flip; 43.6% of women within 2 cm). Army personnel are not a general-population sample, so it is not used for percentiles.