Eye color is more important than skin color for clothing color aesthetics
Abstract
Fashion advice for clothing color is most often based on the wearer’s skin color, though hair and eye color are also considered. More saturated, warm (e.g., orange-red) colors have been found to be judged more aesthetic for White women with a relatively tanned (high melanin) skin complexion than for those with a relatively light complexion. Melanin levels in the skin, hair, and iris are correlated but the relative importance of these features for aesthetic judgments of clothing is unclear. I first replicated the preference for warm garment color for women with a darker complexion (Experiment 1 Task A). I then tested the relative importance of skin, eye, and hair color by transforming skin color between low- and high-melanin levels (Experiment 1 Task A) and by transplanting eyes between facial images (Experiment 2). Results revealed a dominant role of iris color with warmer, more saturated, and darker clothing colors being chosen for faces with darker eyes. Skin color had little influence. Even when participants were instructed to match clothing to skin color, they used eye color as a basis for clothing color choice. The results indicate that the emphasis on skin color for personal clothing color choice may be misplaced.
Citation
Perrett , D I 2023 , ' Eye color is more important than skin color for clothing color aesthetics ' , Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , vol. Online first . https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000626
Publication
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1931-3896Type
Journal article
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Get it white : color-tunable AC/DC OLEDs
Froebel, Markus; Schwab, Tobias; Kliem, Mona; Hofmann, Simone; Leo, Karl; Gather, Malte C. (2015-02) - Journal articleOrganic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have gained considerable attention because of their use of inherently flexible materials and their compatibility with facile roll-to-roll and printing processes. In addition to high ... -
Optimizing countershading camouflage
Cuthill, Innes; Sanghera, N. Simon; Penacchio, Olivier; Lovell, Paul George; Ruxton, Graeme Douglas; Harris, Julie (2016-11-15) - Journal articleCountershading, the widespread tendency of animals to be darker on the side that receives strongest illumination, has classically been explained as an adaptation for camouflage: obliterating cues to 3D shape and enhancing ... -
Deep spectroscopic luminosity function of Abell 85 : no evidence for a steep upturn of the faint-end slope
Agulli, I.; Aguerri, J. A. L.; Sanchez-Janssen, R.; Barrena, R.; Diaferio, A.; Serra, A. L.; Mendez Abreu, Jairo (2014-10-11) - Journal articleWe present a new deep determination of the spectroscopic luminosity function (LF) within the virial radius of the nearby and massive Abell 85 (A85) cluster down to the dwarf regime (M* + 6) using Very Large Telescope/Visible ...