“Sweet CEO”

“This dress makes me think of two words we don’t typically associate with each other: edgy and sweet.”

—Paraphrase of Michael Kors (judge of the fashion design competition Project Runway)

On that Project Runway episode (S6, E1), the “edgy and sweet” dress ended up being the winning design.

The judges all loved the dress, because it was:

original and unique, while simultaneously being
coherent and aesthetically-pleasing

This is also something to love about Dramatic Classic Ingenue faces.

When edgy Dramatic and sweet Ingenue combine with refined Classic, the result is beauty that’s both extremely unique and extremely balanced and harmonious.

Dramatic Classic Ingenue Celebrities

DCI Celebrities are on Pinterest here and listed below:

Adut Akech
Carly Rae Jepsen
HoYeon Jung
Jennette McCurdy
Keke Palmer
Kristin Davis
Meg Ryan
Mircea Monroe (with Romantic as 4th essence)
Paige Muniz (with Ethereal as 4th essence)

Dramatic Classic Ingenue Fashion

Unless you’re friends with the “edgy and sweet” Project Runway designer, and they’re cool with making you a custom wardrobe, it can be difficult to find fashion that simultaneously contains high amounts of Dramatic and Ingenue.

Edgy and sweet elements look amazing combined in a single garment.

But it’s a unique choice—one that isn’t too common in mainstream fashion.

So DCI is a hard aesthetic to find in stores, at least if you’re looking for individual pieces that blend all your essences.

Here’s an awesome DCI look:

Simple shirt and blazer: Classic.

Full skirt: Ingenue.
And wearing head-to-toe black is one of the easiest (and most effective) ways to add edgy Dramatic.

To find DCI inspiration, you can use search terms like:

“Dramatic Classic Ingenue” (You definitely hadn’t thought of this!)
“feminine classic fashion” (Often has a lot of Ingenue and Classic, and sometimes other essences)
“power dressing” (Often has a lot of Dramatic and Classic, and sometimes other essences)

Then you can combine elements of the “feminine classic” and “power-dressing” aesthetics to create innovative DCI looks.

You can also ask AI for outfit inspiration:

Despite being a futuristic technology, AI is great at churning out retro-inspired fashion.

This pretty Ingenue skirt, plus Classic timeless shirt and shoes, acquire some edge from the Dramatic jacket.

If you have a lot of Classic and Ingenue, you can totally rock retro style.

But the DCI aesthetic can also feel very modern:

This time, I asked AI to create an edgier outfit. And AI really committed, pairing a leather jacket with leather pants.

That’s a lot of edge, tempered slightly with an Ingenue babydoll top and basic Classic pumps.

Here’s a similar vibe, but subtracting half the leather:

Dramatic jacket and Classic simple turtleneck, purse, and pumps.

Plus a skirt that combines long, angular Dramatic lines with a flared Ingenue silhouette and slightly cropped length.

A final DCI look:

Here AI takes the Dramatic leather jacket to new heights/lengths. Matching it with an ultra-sweet Ingenue dress creates an intriguing juxtaposition.

Add Classic with a basic blazer and ankle boots. (Ankle boots often have Gamine, but these ones are simple and polished enough to be fully Classic. Gamine booties will typically have buckles, straps, hardware, geometric quilting, or other playful detail.)

I clearly failed at managing this AI’s obsession with leather. But long, stiff jackets and pants in non-leather material (anything from very stiff cotton to snakeskin to alligator) will typically be Dramatic, too!

Dramatic Classic Ingenue Makeup and Hair

Like DCI fashion, DCI makeup combines elements that at first might seem conflicting but end up looking fantastic together:

DCI Keke Palmer

Keke Palmer is so gorgeous in this Classic hair, plus makeup that combines graphic Dramatic eyeliner with pretty pink Ingenue eyelids and lips.

Here’s Keke in a very different but still harmonious aesthetic:

Now the sleek, totally-off-the-face hair is especially good for Dramatic, with a matte Dramatic Classic lip (Dramatic from the unique two-toned, almost color-blocked effect incorporating a very deep shade; Classic from the conventional medium red).

The simple eye look adds Ingenue with delicate shimmery shadow.

DCI Carly Rae Jepsen

Bangs stereotypically communicate sweetness and youth. So when you picture intimidating Dramatic hair, bangs might be about the last style you envision.

But the right version is actually highly Dramatic:

Sleek and full blunt bangs paired with long, straight locks used to be Carly Rae Jepsen’s signature look—and it’s awesome for her Dramatic.

Here the long, straight lines created by her hairstyle mirror the long, straight shapes of her jawline.

DCI Meg Ryan

Another stunning DCI, though this time in less ideal hair:

DCI Faces

As we see with Meg Ryan, DCIs often have rather small, short, rounded, and/or circular shapes to their facial features: brows, eyes, nose, and/or lips.

Of course, sometimes they’ll have Dramatic in one or more of these features, too, like more angular eyes or brows.

(As a side note, to determine people’s style essences, I always use a holistic typing method where I focus not on the essences in any individual feature but rather on how a face as a whole harmonizes with different styles of clothing. It’s just that when it comes to describing the patterns that we see in the different types, it can be difficult to do so without referencing individual facial features.)

DCIs may also have sharp, Dramatic-appearing shapes in their noses or jawlines:

Carly Rae Jepsen has Dramatic-appearing bone structure: you could sketch a nearly straight-edged shape across the contours of her jaw and cheeks.

Again, this is why her long straight hair and blunt-cut bangs are so flattering—their geometry perfectly compliments the Dramatic in her bone structure.
This orange hair is very fun though not quite as good of a match for her style type, since the piecey bangs plus playful color add Gamine.

DCIs also often have balanced Classic proportions—features that don’t appear especially far apart or close together—and features of moderate Classic shapes and sizes.

DCIs are Hard to Type!

Despite that Dramatic is the boldest essence (and arguably the most attention-grabbing), it can easily go undetected if a person has higher amounts of other essences.

This is especially true if the person has a lot of gentle Ingenue.

Another reason Dramatic can be so hard to see in DCIs: in clothing, Dramatic is often mixed with other essences, making it tricky to tell what is clashing vs. connecting with a person’s face:

Many would likely agree that this suit overwhelms DCI Adut Akech. And it would be easy to say that it’s because it’s avant-garde and extreme—Dramatic.

But to me, the exaggerated Dramatic shoulder silhouette is one of the few things about this suit that *does* work for Adut. The sharp-edged shoulders fit her dignified, intense beauty. And if you cover the suit, you can see that her powerful face pulls off totally off-the-face hair, which is typically something Dramatics do best.
What doesn’t work: the playful print-mixing (Gamine) and the cheetah print and velvety textures (Romantic)—plus the fact that Adut has a lot of Ingenue and Classic, and there’s zero Ingenue and Classic in this outfit.

It would be easy to look at Adut in the avant-garde suit, see that it overwhelms her, and conclude she must have no Dramatic—but that misdiagnoses why the suit doesn’t work for her.

That’s why part of my celebrity typing process is to compare photos of celebrity faces (with their outfits cropped out) to pure versions of each of the 7 essences, so I won’t run into an issue where I’m struggling to determine whether a Romantic Dramatic Gamine suit doesn’t work for a celebrity because they lack Romantic, Dramatic, Gamine, or two of those essences, or all three.

And sometimes DCIs just really subvert Dramatic stereotypes:

Jennette McCurdy has essentially the opposite of a stereotypical Dramatic face. Since she has a ton of Ingenue, her overall vibe is sweet and pretty, with dainty, rounded shapes to many of her features.

If I wanted to type her based on stereotypes, I’d probably say Classic Gamine Ingenue or possibly Natural Gamine Ingenue. But based on virtual draping, she’s an unlikely DCI. And while it’s hard to find photos of her styled in her essences, some of her best looks appear sleek and sophisticated, rather than playfully Gamine or casually Natural. (In those photos, you can also see that her Dramatic may be located in her sleek-appearing bone structure.)

Dramatic Classic Ingenue: Beauty Chameleon

DCI is an amazing essence blend for so many reasons.

One is that as a DCI, you can be a beauty chameleon.

Dramatic and Ingenue have utterly opposite vibes. So you can use your hair, makeup, and outfit to embody varying degrees of their qualities, sometimes embracing a more Dramatic, intimidating, intense mood, and sometimes projecting more gentle, conventionally pretty Ingenue vibes.

(You could even potentially do this with things like body language and facial expression, if you really want to be a chameleon!)

So as a DCI, you embody the beauty of variety and contrast. And your Classic adds even more variety, with its balanced and timeless appeal. So at times when you don’t feel like embodying extremely sweet or extremely edgy beauty, you can emphasize your conventional Classic.

Does Hoyeon Jung have intimidating, sweet, or polished beauty? Depending on her styling, and even subtle changes in her facial expression (see her at the beginning of this post for a more Dramatic vibe!), she can appear to embody all three.

I’m a huge fan of variety and contrast in various aesthetic mediums, from makeup to music. To me, it’s especially engaging and beautiful when a work of art has contrasting, even opposite elements (like music that combines loud and soft, fast and slow, or harsher and softer vocals).

Similarly, I love fashion that merges edgy and girlish elements.

Variety and contrast can help make art more original and complex, which to many people equates to having increased aesthetic appeal.

Amazing DCI

As Michael Kors remarked, we don’t often associate “edgy” with “sweet.”

The superpower of Dramatic Classic Ingenues is that edginess and sweetness are both part of your inherent facial geometry. So you make them look perfectly right paired together.

And this sense of rightness and harmony is enhanced by the balanced, symmetrical beauty of your Classic.

As a DCI, your beauty can simultaneously be highly edgy and sweet, while having lasting, timeless appeal.

Dramatic Classic Ingenue