u/Pegaret_Again

Adam Driver

Robert Pattinson

Sam Neill

Tom Hiddleston

Anthony Hopkins

Jerry Seinfeld

Morgan Freeman

Paul Bettany

Cillian Murphy Moved to TR!!!

what are your thoughts? are there other current celebrities you think could be Dramatics?

i saw some interesting comments a while back where people were exploring their responses to yin and yang, and those that favoured yang found yin to be somewhat 'dishonest'.

In some ways i think i understand what was meant - flattering or charming people is associated with a yin essence, and this kind of appeal could feel like a trick or distraction from harsh realities of life.

But i also think of yin as potentially being a kind of honesty as well - such a recognition of vulnerability, or a need for comfort - valid and essential in their own way.

I wanted to know your instinctive response to yin and yang, and what this reveals about you and your choices when it comes to style.

So to me, face is an intrinsic aspect of the kibbe system. I don’t believe at all in the concept of faces and bodies being ‘different types’.

A resemblance however - as we know from SN Katie Perry/FG Zooey Deschanel & other examples - is not a sign of two people belonging to the same Image.

I think while this frustrates some people and potentially makes them just want to say “ignore faces”, to me this makes me lean in, it makes the system more intruiging. 

When i look at the image of other celebrities that people identify as Margot Robbie lookalikes, i can easily see what they mean. There is a bold structure to the faces, similar complexions, comparable face shapes and eyes, a number of qualities that combine into a resemblance.

But I look at these faces and each one, to me, has a different Kibbe ID.

Margot Robbie is unverified but is generally understood to be an N type, most people seem to think FN.

Samara Weaving to me looks potentially like a Dramatic.

Jaime Pressley an FG.

Emma Mackey a DC.

All yang-leaning types, but quite different - i think - from a Kibbe perspective.

I don’t think it’s some big mystery, i think it is about looking past a superficial similarity and seeing the real ‘structure’ or yin yang of an individual. I feel this is why the Kibbe system is so interesting to me, because it sees vast differences in yin/yang, where minor differences in appearance may at first be evident.

Please post your line sketches here!

i do believe that 'vibes' form a meaningful part of understanding the Kibbe system.

Especially in the Old Hollywood era, there are ways that, say, a Dramatic type actor might be used to bring a specific role/story to life, as opposed to a Natural or Gamine type.

When watching and analysing these older films, we can often connect a through-line from a role, to an image, and then, into its requisite style concept, and thus can gain a more rounded understanding of what the Kibbe system is setting out to achieve.

But it's not a straightforward matter to 'diagnose' an actor's ID from their roles, or for that matter, anyone from some dimension of their public persona.

Firstly it's necessary to approach the Kibbe system with precision and not with borrowed or self-constructed definitions.

I recall when first encountering Kibbe, i was confused as to why Tom Cruise and Julie Andrews (both SNs) weren't Classic types.

I thought of Tom Cruise as having a conventional 'handsomeness' and a visually simple style approach that - to me - communicated 'Classic'. Why not.

Similarly, Julie Andrews had a crisp, decisive quality in her most famous roles that i assumed were 'Classic' family qualities.

Trying to reconstruct my understanding from back then, i think 'Natural' must have conveyed earthy, elemental, rugged, laid-back, imprecise, maybe even sloppy???

However, my updated - hopefully more accurate - grasp of 'Natural' is more like assertive, unfussy, impactful, proactive, competitive, practical. My former understanding didn't align with the reality of SNs. I think initially, i was just free-associating off of the words "soft" and "natural" more than anything else.

Now i can clearly see that Tom Cruise's unstoppable, competitive, kinetic energy and clean, unfussy style approach are squarely SN qualities. Similarly Julie Andrew's wholesome warmth plus professional precision are also so very typical for the SN image. My understanding of both Naturals and Classics has shifted greatly since then.

Another pitfall is confusing technical acting talent vs a person being specifically selected to portray a certain archetype.

This doesn't mean an 'archetype' actor is untalented, but that their physicality and attitude are extremely effective in certain roles. Perhaps someone like Tommy Lee Jones is a good example of someone typecast, with his image and physicality are very intertwined and effective in portraying no-nonsense authoritarian figures.

But other actors may, due to technical skill (or a good agent i guess), get to play a lot of diverse roles. An example of this is Amanda Seyfried. She has played an ambitious and fraudulent CEO in "The Dropout" and a blonde ditz in "Mean Girls" and everything in between.

I don't think we can simplistically extrapolate all that much from one or two roles she has played. I think there is meaning to be found, for sure, but we have to be sophisticated about it and able to surgically extract what is the skill of the individual vs what innate personal qualities are being harnessed, if any.

So i would love to hear how your understanding and analysis may have changed over time, and how you feel about the concept of "vibes" in relation to the Kibbe approach.

Please post your line sketches here!

Please post your line sketches here!

I could be wrong here, but I often suspect people are analysing outfits, styling and celebrities based on what appears to be their personal taste - preferring one dress above another dress, judging one hairstyle as prettier than another, just vibe-typing an outfit and blam, you have the ID!

But

I feel that Kibbe Identities are not about your own taste. Developing taste is a seperate (and important) task. I feel IDs sit outside of taste? Tasteless! Thats why i can be a fan of this philosophy even though I'm not necessarily aligned with Kibbe's particular way of styling his clients.

I see IDs as more about maximising visual impact & storytelling, so as to be memorable. Meme-able! And i think there's something unapologetic and brave about that.

Therefore i don't think picking the prettiest dress out of lineup is a meaningful way to engage with Kibbe concepts. In a way you might need to imagine something intangible, a half-seen suspicion of a style story that has not yet manifest.

Kibbe IDs apply equally to the main character and the supporting roles. The princess and the witch, the heroine and the villainess. The ingenue and the sage.

If you want to be blandly generically pretty, i don't know if Kibbe is going to help a great deal with that? I'm repeatedly surprised and confused when people view this system as a kind of male gaze-y, man-pleasing style system because for me it really is about accepting & amping up your uniqueness and individuality, the opposite of what a male gaze objectifies. I mean, you could certainly view IDs as generic, one-note Hollywood glamour aesthetics but i think thats only one form of execution of these ideas. For me its more as a way to clear out the weeds in order focus on ideas that have harmonic resonance with your individual presence, and amplify what is already there.

My (perhaps controversial, I don't know) take is that any parts of the Kibbe process which feel introspective only serve the purpose of helping us seperate our own internal experience/perspective/taste from the external rubric of Kibbe.

When you are learning any new skill or subject, it's never particularly helpful to drill down into your own experience first.

Now of course, our style and bodies are so personal the temptation is to map perceived Kibbe concepts onto our pre-existing experience.

But this is backwards. The problem is, we won't know what parts of our experience are relevant until we have a clue what the Kibbe concept is supposed to be measuring.

This is why i think reverse-engineering - while I don't personally hate it - can be unhelpful. We can be cycling around within our own assumptions, rather than grasping what's pertinent or learning something new.

And i think approaching the Kibbe system with too much introspection can be a form of reverse-engineering our soul. We might need to set aside our internalised view of ourselves to make room for a different perspective.

What are your thoughts?

tw if body measurements are an issue for you. take care of your mental health!

I would be interested to know if there are any non-yang types (ie, not SN, FN, D or SD) who have a high bust or full bust measurement that is greater than about 97cm/38 inches, and a hip measurement > 100cm.

I have been thinking thoughts about literal scale & sizing, and you might be able to help - or completely destroy - some theories!!!

Please post your line sketches here!

Please post your line sketches here!