Describing Clothes in Spanish: Style, Size and Patterns

In the previous lesson, we learned several words for clothing items, showed you how to make simple sentences with them and how to ask prices in Spanish as well. In this lesson, we will learn some important adjectives to describe clothes in Spanish, including those for general appearance, size, fabric patters and styles. We hope you find the lesson very useful. Let’s start…

Vocabulary review: Common clothing items in Spanish

Most of the new vocabulary that will be covered in this lesson are Spanish adjectives. However, before moving on to the new stuff, we will ask you to take a few seconds to look at this collection of pictures, which includes a list of common clothing items in Spanish, “prendas de vestir”, and think about their color, style (estilo), fabric pattern (tipo de tela) and general look (bonita, fea…).

A list of common clothing items in Spanish - Describing clothes in Spanish

Practicing the vocabulary for clothes in Spanish!

Drag the name of each item of clothing in Spanish to the box corresponding to each image.

Describing clothes in Spanish: styles, sizes and fabric patterns

Common adjectives to describe clothes in Spanish

Some common adjectives to describe clothes in Spanish are: BONITO (beautiful), FEO (ugly), VIEJO (old), NUEVO (new) and BRILLANTE (shiny). Using colors to describe clothes is very important too, so knowing at least some of them will be really helpful. As usual, we will be using the verb SER (to be) and LUCIR (look) as the main verbs in descriptions. Listen to the first group of sentences describing clothes in Spanish below:

Ayer fui a la tienda y compré una blusa celeste muy bonita.

Yesterday I went to the store and bought a very nice, sky-blue blouse

La camisa que estoy usando es muy fea.

The shirt that I am wearing is very ugly.

Estos zapatos son muy viejos. Necesito un par nuevo.

These shoes are very old. I need a new pair.

Adjectives to describe clothing styles in Spanish

Now, we will focus on adjectives that not only describe the general look of things, but can be used to describe specific clothing styles in Spanish. They are words like MODERNO (modern), CASUAL, A LA MODA (fashionable), PASADO DE MODA (old-fashioned) and CLASICO (classic). For these adjectives, you can use the verb LUCIR in its form LUCE and LUCEN depending on how many items you want to talk about, just like this:

One item: Ese vestido luce a la moda. (That dress looks fashionable.)
Many items: Esos zapatos lucen pasados de moda. (Those shoes look old-fashioned.)

When talking about clothing styles in Spanish, you can ask any of these questions:

¿Qué estilo de ropa te gusta más? (What clothing style do you like the most?)
¿Cuál es tu estilo de ropa favorito? (What is your favorite clothing style?)

Know that you can also point out a specific clothing item style by adding an adjective after the noun, for example: “ropa clásica”, “vestido oriental”. In addition, make your sentences more interesting with verbs like “Usar”(to wear) and “Vestirse” (reflexive verb) as in these two examples:

Ella usa ropa casual. (She wears casual clothes.)
Yo me visto con ropa clásica algunas veces. (I dress in classic clothes sometimes.)

Listen to some examples below and check how different sentence structures are used with clothing items and adjectives to describe more clothing items in Spanish.

Moderno – ¿Qué estilo de ropa es ese? – Es ropa moderna.

Modern – What clothing style is that one? – Those are modern clothes

Clásico – Ella usa ropa clásica

Classic – She wears classic clothes

Casual – Su forma de vestir es casual.

Casual – The way she dresses is casual

Pasado de moda – Esta ropa está pasada de moda

Old fashioned – These clothes are old fashioned

A la moda/ de moda – Leslie siempre se viste a la moda.

Fashionable – Leslie always dresses fashionable

Adjectives to talk about the size of clothes in Spanish

In order to talk about the size of clothes in Spanish, “la talla de la ropa”, we will use the words PEQUEÑA (small), MEDIANA (medium) and GRANDE (large). Clothing items often have the tags “S”, “M” or “L” attached, which come from the English language, but still people will understand if you say:

Quiero una camisa de talla S. (I want a size S shirt.)
Yo visto ropa de talla XL. (I wear XL size clothing.)

Additionally, you can also use the adjectives “Extra pequeño” and “Extra grande” for some special sizes. Besides, you can always use comparatives to ask for different clothing sizes, e.g.

¿Tienes una camisa más grande? (Do you have this shirt in a bigger size?)
Necesito comprar un vestido en una talla más pequeña. (I need to buy a dress in a smaller size.)

You can listen to more sentences describing clothes in Spanish below:

Talla pequeña: ¿Qué talla está buscando? – Una talla pequeña

Small size – What size are you looking for? – A small size

Talla mediana – José usa ropa de talla mediana

Medium size – Jose wears medium size clothes

Talla grande – Roberto compra ropa de talla grande a veces

Large size – Roberto buys large size clothes sometimes

Adjectives to describe fabric patterns in Spanish

The last group of examples will include a few adjectives that are commonly used to describe fabric patterns in Spanish, “diseños/patrones de tela”. They are words such as: DE PUNTOS (dotted), SENCILLO (plain), RAYADO (striped), A CUADROS (plaid) and others. Listen to the last group of examples below.

Rayado / de rayas – Yo tengo varias camisas rayadas.

Striped – I have many striped shirts

Floreado – Su vestido floreado es muy hermoso y elegante

Flowered – Her flowered dress is nice and elegant

Sencillo – Yo prefiero la ropa sencilla

Plain – I prefer plain clothes

De puntos – A mí me gustan los vestidos de puntos.

Dotted – I like dotted dresses

You can see this vocabulary in use in simple conversations in our next lesson about shopping for clothes and saying what you are wearing. Thanks for joining us in this lesson! ¡Hasta pronto!