The Science of Style: In Fashion, Colors Should Match
Only Moderately
Kurt Gray
1
*, Peter Schmitt
1
, Nina Strohminger
2
, Karim S. Kassam
3
1 Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham,
North Carolina, United States of America, 3 Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Abstract
Fashion is an essential part of human experience and an industry worth over $1.7 trillion. Important choices such as hiring or
dating someone are often based on the clothing people wear, and yet we understand almost nothing about the objective
features that make an outfit fashionable. In this study, we provide an empirical approach to this key aesthetic domain,
examining the link between color coordination and fashionableness. Studies reveal a robust quadratic effect, such that that
maximum fashionableness is attained when outfits are neither too coordinated nor too different. In other words,
fashionable outfits are those that are moderately matched, not those that are ultra-matched (‘‘matchy-matchy’’) or zero-
matched (‘‘clashing’’). This balance of extremes supports a broader hypothesis regarding aesthetic preferences–the
Goldilocks principle–that seeks to balance simplicity and complexity.
Citation: Gray K, Schmitt P, Strohminger N, Kassam KS (2014) The Science of Style: In Fashion, Colors Should Match Only Moderately. PLoS ONE 9(7): e102772.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102772
Editor: Brock Bastian, University of New South Wales, Australia
Received January 16, 2014; Accepted June 23, 2014; Published July 17, 2014
Copyright: ß 2014 Gray et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This study was funded by departmental funds at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and
analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* Email: kurtgray@unc.edu
Introduction
Every day, people ask themselves the question: ‘‘What to wear?’’
People want outfits that are maximally fashionable, and this isn’t
mere vanity: clothing influences perceived and signaled social
identity [1], employment outcomes [2], romantic success [3], and
even cognitive processes [4]. Despite its universal human
importance and vast financial worth–the fashion industry is valued
at
$1.7 trillion (more than double the entire U.S. federal science
budget) –there is little empirical psychological research on the
objective features which make something fashionable. In this
study, we provide an empirical approach to fashionableness,
through judgments of color combinations. We uncover practical
implications for daily life, and in doing so speak to a broader
theory in aesthetics and human preferences–the Goldilocks
Principle.
The Goldilocks Principle represents a tradition of philosophical
thought stretching back millennia: Aristotle’s Golden mean,
Buddha’s middle way, and Confucius’ Doctrine of the Mean all
represent a balance between two extremes. The Goldilocks
Principle has psychological support in a variety of domains, as
infants prefer looking at visual sequences that are neither too
complex, nor too simple [5], and optimum psychological well-
being–i.e., flow–is achieved when experiences balance simplicity
and complexity [6]. The optimal distinctiveness model of social
identity suggests that when developing a sense of self, we strive to
strike a harmonious balance between similarity with others and
individual distinctiveness [7]. Furthermore, judgments of facial
attractiveness across cultures are predicted by averageness [8] [9],
suggesting that the aesthetic ideal is found not at the extremes, but
rather in balance.
In terms of fashion, there are two popular approaches to style
that represent ‘‘extremes.’’ On one hand, we often speak as if the
most fashionable outfits are those that fully coordinate or ‘‘match’’
[10]. This suggests that pairing the same or similar colors with
each other may be the key to fashion. On the other hand, fashion
is often about being noticed, and so we might want color
combinations that maximally differ from each other and ‘‘pop’’
[11]. Between these two extremes, the Goldilocks Principle
suggests that the best color combinations are those that are
neither too similar (‘‘matchy-matchy’’) nor too different (‘‘clash-
ing’’).
In this paper, we investigate whether the Goldilocks Principle
predicts fashionableness across diverse color combinations in both
men’s and women’s outfits. Support for the principle would be
illustrated by a ‘‘peak’’ in ratings, such that any linear trends
between coordination and fashionableness should be qualified by a
quadratic effect such that maximum fashionableness is achieved by
moderate color coordination.
Method
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All participants
provided written informed consent prior to completing the study
and were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk).
A total of 239 mTurk participants (69% women, M
age
= 35.4,
SD
age
= 12.9) each saw 30 different color combinations, in one of
four color palettes. Palettes 1 and 2 were in women’s clothing, and
palettes 3 and 4 were in men’s clothing. Each palette included 4
colors, illustrated in Figure 1. Out of 256 possible color
combinations within each set, we selected combinations quasi-
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 July 2014 | Volume 9 | Issue 7 | e102772
randomly to represent a range of coordination, from all matching
to all different (see Figure 1 for sample outfits, Table S1 for all
outfit combinations, Figure S1 for screen shots of fashionableness,
and Figure S2 for screen shots of coordination judgments).
Fashionableness Judgments
Participants rated clothing sets on how fashionable, good, and
liked they were on five point Likert scales. Ratings were
aggregated across participants to yield an overall fashionableness
rating for each combination (all as ..95), which were Z-scored
within each palette.
Coordination Calculations
Rather than solicit global ratings of coordination, participants
rated the coordination of all possible pairs of color swatches within
each palette through 3 items–coordinated, matching and similar–
answered on five point Likert scales (a’s ..81). These pairwise
judgments were aggregated for each outfit, and Z-scored within
each palette, to create an overall coordination score. Thus,
Figure 1. Coordination/Matching (z-score).
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102772.g001
The Science of Style
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 2 July 2014 | Volume 9 | Issue 7 | e102772
combinations with all similar or highly coordinated colors (e.g.,
only shades of green) received high scores whereas those with very
different colors (e.g., red, blue, black, grey) received low scores (see
Materials and Methods S1 for additional detail on these
calculations).
Analysis
Curve estimation was used to assess linear and quadratic effects
of coordination on fashionableness. Women’s and men’s clothing
were analyzed separately.
Results
Women’s Clothing
Analyses revealed a significant linear trend, R
2
= .18, F (1,
58) = 13.04, p = .001, such that more coordination was linked to
more fashionableness, consistent with the general importance of
matching. Importantly, however, this linear trend was qualified by
the predicted quadratic effect, R
2
= .44, F (2, 57) = 22.23, p,.001,
such that peak fashionableness was achieved by moderately
coordinated combinations. This quadratic effect accounted for
twice as much variance as the linear effect.
Men’s Clothing
Analyses did not reveal a significant linear trend, F,1, but did
reveal the predicted quadratic trend, R
2
= .28, F (2, 57) = 11.18,
p,.001, such that peak fashionableness was again achieved by
moderately coordinated combinations.
Discussion
These data suggest a simple answer to the question ‘‘what to
wear?’’ Select a color combination that is neither completely
uniform, nor completely different. Certainly, moderate matching
is not the only key to fashion, which varies across time and culture
and depends upon many factors including cut, design, and
trendiness. However, these studies reveal that, with all other
factors held constant, the Goldilocks principle predicted judgments
across four different color palettes in both men’s and women’s
clothing. To examine the external validity of these findings, future
research should test this idea in naturalistic settings, such as in
magazines and runway shows.
These results are consistent with both centuries of philosophical
thought and more recent psychological studies on the importance
of ‘‘the middle way.’’ The Goldilocks principle may also explain
aesthetic judgments beyond fashion, reflecting a basic principle of
human preference that seeks to balance simplicity and complexity,
order and disorder. Indeed, people prefer music that balances
melodic simplicity and complexity [12]. This quantitative analysis
of fashion is only a first step in empirical aesthetics, but it
highlights the utility of bringing science to art; psychological
science can help explain the important but often invisible
judgments of daily life.
Supporting Information
Figure S1 Rating a sample outfit combination.
(DOCX)
Figure S2 Rating a sample color pair.
(DOCX)
Table S1 Clothing combinations by color palette.
(DOCX)
Table S2 Cronbach’s Alphas for scales used.
(DOCX)
Materials and Methods S1 Extended materials & meth-
ods.
(DOCX)
Results S1 Extended results.
(DOCX)
Acknowledgments
We thank Adam Waytz for helpful comments.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: KG PS NS KK. Performed the
experiments: KG PS. Analyzed the data: KG PS. Wrote the paper: KG PS
NS KK.
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