Is it the clothes that make her look so skinny?

As if the female models in the J. Crew clothing catalog aren’t skinny enough, this photograph carves away even more of this model’s hips with a clever placement of her right arm and its shadow in a simple optical illusion, with no Photoshop required.

The complete catalog page, from 
the April 2012 J. Crew Style Guide.



The slight curve on this side of her hip 
deviates a bit from the straight and vertical.

Yet on this side, thanks to her arm and its 
shadow, a vertical line appears, visually 
cropping off more of her hip.

And what product is the photo advertising? Appropriately enough, it’s their version of a skinny jean they call The Toothpick Jean. ($98-$125.)