Health UK (Commonwealth Union) – University of St Andrews who led a study have found that “You are what you wear” is absolutely right.
A recent study, conducted by a team of researchers from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience, has uncovered a groundbreaking connection between a person’s eye color and the colors of clothing that complement them. This scientific revelation, published in the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts journal on October 23rd, marks the first time such a connection has been established.
The study’s findings indicate a strong preference for “cool” blue hues to harmonize with individuals who have grey or blue eyes, while “warm” orange and red fabric hues were favored to complement dark brown eyes. Professor David Perrett, the lead researcher from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience, indicated that the study’s approach, was to enlisted the input of 200 participants to gauge their opinions on which clothing colors suited various facial features. What took them by surprise was the remarkable consensus among the participants in selecting clothing colors, with a distinct preference for reds and blues. However, the specific colors chosen depended on the wearer of the garment.
“Everyone wants to look their best, but what should guide the choice and colour of our clothing? Previously, our work indicated the importance of a person’s complexion for clothing colour choice, but we did not define the critical aspect of complexion. Those with a darker complexion tend to have darker pigmentation in their hair, their eyes, and their skin. Any one of these features could be the basis of clothing colour choice. We thought that skin tone would be the critical feature as this is stressed in virtually all stylist advice. Surprisingly skin colour turned out to be unimportant.”
The research team conducted two experiments to assess the relative significance of skin, eye, and hair color in the selection of clothing colors. In the first experiment, they used images of White women photographed under standard lighting conditions, with half having light-colored skin, hair, and eyes, and the other half possessing darker skin, hair, and eyes. These images were modified to change the skin tone, with naturally fair faces given a tan and naturally darker faces lightened.
One hundred participants were tasked with adjusting clothing colors for these face images, both with and without altered skin tone. Participants had the option to choose from a wide spectrum of colors, adjustable in terms of brightness and saturation. Surprisingly, despite significant alterations in skin tone, the preferences for clothing colors remained consistent. For instance, reds were still preferred for faces originally darker, even when their skin was lightened, and blues were chosen for originally lighter faces, even when their skin was darkened. These results indicated that eye and hair color played a crucial role, remaining unaffected by skin tone changes.
The second study reinforced the importance of eye color in clothing color selection. This study compared sets of natural face images with light eyes and dark eyes, and additional images were created by swapping the eyes between these sets. One hundred new participants tended to select blues more often for images with light eyes (whether natural or transplanted), while they opted for orange/reds for images with dark eyes (again, whether natural or transplanted).
The significance of these results lies in their relevance to self-esteem, as clothing plays a vital role in personal expression. The global fashion industry, worth trillions of dollars annually, heavily depends on color in garment selection. Although there is a wealth of stylist advice on which colors to wear based on personal categorization involving skin, hair, and eye color, these categories lack scientific foundation, and the advice is inconsistent across different stylists. Furthermore, the primary criterion for categorizing individuals is skin tone.
