Rectangle (straight) body shape
Bust and hip in balance with a waist that does not draw in sharply from either.
Also called straight, banana.
Measure your ownWhat the measurements say
Bust and hip are close to each other, and the waist does not draw in by the conventional twenty-five percent.
A worked example
Three measurements that produce a rectangle result, run through the calculator itself. The ratios below are its own output, so if a threshold changed and this example stopped producing this shape, the build would fail rather than the page quietly going out of date.
| Bust | 90 cm |
|---|---|
| Waist | 78 cm |
| Hip | 92 cm |
| Bust against hip | -2.2% |
|---|---|
| Waist against bust | 13.3% smaller |
| Waist against hip | 15.2% smaller |
| Waist definition | Straighter |
- Bust against hip. Within 5% either way counts as balanced. Yours is balanced.
- Waist against bust. How far the waist draws in from the bust measurement.
- Waist against hip. How far the waist draws in from the hip measurement.
- Waist definition. A waist at least 25% smaller than both bust and hip is conventionally called defined. Yours draws in 13.3% at the narrower of the two.
Telling it apart from what it gets confused with
Rectangle or hourglass?
The waist and nothing else. Both have bust and hip within five percent; the question is whether the waist comes in by at least a quarter from the narrower of them. The line sits at 25%, and readings either side of it are describing much the same body.
Rectangle or oval?
Whether the waist is smaller than bust and hip at all. A rectangle's waist draws in, just not by much; an oval's measures the same or more. The two are adjacent on a continuum rather than being different kinds of thing.
What is worth knowing about it
Rectangle is the residue of this classification in the same way oval is for faces — it is what remains when the bust and hip are balanced and no sharp waist appears to name it something else. That makes the boundary with hourglass softer than a category name suggests.
Of the five, this is the one the sizing system serves least well, and for a structural reason. Patterns are drafted assuming a waist reduction that this shape does not have, so ready-to-wear tends to gape at the waist when it fits the bust. That is a drafting assumption failing, not a body failing to cooperate.
What it means for clothes
- Belts, seaming and colour blocking create waist definition that the measurements do not.
- Straight and column cuts work with the line rather than against it.
- Layering adds dimension where a single clingy layer would read flat.
All of this is about how garments hang, which is a question about cloth rather than about you. Sizing systems are drafted around assumptions, and a shape that ready-to-wear serves badly is a drafting assumption failing rather than a body failing to cooperate.
Measure rather than guess
The body shape calculator takes three tape measurements and shows every ratio and threshold behind the result. No weight, no BMI, no ideal, and nothing is uploaded — the arithmetic runs in your browser.
These categories come from pattern drafting rather than from anatomy: they describe where a garment needs room. They are not a taxonomy of people, they carry no health meaning, and nothing here scores or ranks anyone. Three circumferences cannot support a claim about health and this tool does not make one.