Theresa May knows it. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe exploited it to stunning effect. Even singer Chris De Burgh was aware of the transformative powers of the colour red.
This is not just the judgment of the stylist who helped the prime minister choose her Amanda Wakeley number for a charity bash last week, or Howard Hawks, who dressed Monroe and Russell in glitzy red robes in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Countless psychological experiments have confirmed that wearing red clothing increases attractiveness and sex appeal.
A 2010 paper, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, found that when a woman wore red it prompted men to sit closer to her and ask more intimate questions. The effect is considered to work the other way, too. A paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology produced evidence from seven experiments which demonstrated that women perceive men to be more attractive and sexually desirable when viewed against a red background and in red clothing. As an article in the latest Research Digest of the British Psychological Society says: “Red displays in the animal kingdom also often indicate sexual interest and availability – complemented by the cultural connotations of red with passion and sex.”
The festive party season has been dominated by the colour. Last week, Amy Adams wore red for the recent premiere of Nocturnal Animals in New York, as did the Duchess of Cambridge for a Buckingham Palace reception. Fashion retailer JD Williams told the Evening Standard that sales of red dresses have outstripped black ones by 43% this year.
But what if red’s allure is just a myth? A team of Dutch and British researchers has published three attempts to replicate what they call the “red effect”. This included testing whether it was more pronounced in a “short-term mating context”, something, as the digest says, supports “the idea that red signals sexual availability”. However, not only did the research, published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, fail to uncover an effect in the mating context, all three experiments failed to demonstrate any effect of red on attractiveness.
In the first study, about 200 young Dutch men were asked to rate the attractiveness of a woman pictured on a dating site, as well as how much they wanted to have sex with her. The woman was shown wearing either a red, black or white shirt. Some men looked in the context of finding a one-night stand, the rest in terms of searching for a long-term partner. In both cases, wearing red didn’t affect the rating.
The same results were found with a sample of nearly 200 heterosexual American men. In the third study, researchers recruited about 400 men via an Amazon affiliate site and asked some to study an image of a woman in a red shirt and others of her in a white shirt. The men’s responses confirmed that the colour had no effect on their rating of the woman.
“The lack of evidence for a red effect in our three experiments … leads us to question the robustness of the red effect in human mate preferences,” the researchers concluded. “We argue … that if red has an effect, then it is likely to be small.”
However, Christian Jarrett, editor of the Digest, offered a word of caution for anyone thinking of giving up on red. “Just as it is wise not to place too much faith in the findings from single studies, we should also interpret failed replications with caution,” he wrote. “These new null results do not mean there is no red effect, but they do raise questions about its robustness, and the possibility that there was a bias in past research to publish positive results.
“A generous interpretation is that the red effect could be more significant in real interactions than in lab-based research using static photos, because the colour might influence the wearer to behave more flirtatiously, for example.”
The fabled benefits of wearing red clothing had already been thrown into question. Earlier this year, a study of waitress-tipping found that, contrary to expectations, men gave smaller tips to women wearing red. This is not to say the colour is without its supporters. Psychologists studying the relationship between colour and voting believe red can still be a powerful influencer, one that historically has benefited the US Republican party.
“Red is arguably the most vibrant colour on the colour wheel,” according to colorpsychology.org. “It is attention-getting and induces a sense of power and excitement.”
In sport, too, red appears to have talismanic properties. A 2009 study by sports psychologists at the University of Münster in Germany, reported in New Scientist magazine, found that players who wear red clothing score 10% more in competitions than when playing in other colours. England football fans are painfully aware that the victorious World Cup team of 1966 wore red, rather than their usual white. They have not won a World Cup or European Championship since.
