Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception
In many societies, appearing slim (corresponding to a small body-mass index) is considered attractive.The fashion industry has been attempting to cater to this trend by designing outfits that can enhance the appearance of slimness. Two anecdotal rules, widespread in the world of fashion, are to choo...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Tsinghua University Press
2020-09-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Social Computing |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.23919/JSC.2020.0006 |
| _version_ | 1797986166161539072 |
|---|---|
| author | Kirill Martynov Kiran Garimella Robert West |
| author_facet | Kirill Martynov Kiran Garimella Robert West |
| author_sort | Kirill Martynov |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In many societies, appearing slim (corresponding to a small body-mass index) is considered attractive.The fashion industry has been attempting to cater to this trend by designing outfits that can enhance the appearance of slimness. Two anecdotal rules, widespread in the world of fashion, are to choose dark clothes and avoid horizontal stripes, in order to appear slim. Thus far, empirical evidence has been unable to conclusively determine the validity of these rules, and there is consequently much controversy regarding the impact of both color and patterns on the visual perception of weight. In this paper, we aim to close this gap by presenting the results from a series of large-scale crowdsourcing studies that investigate the above two claims. We gathered a dataset of around 1000 images of people from the Web together with their ground-truth weight and height as well as clothing attributes about colors and patterns. To elicit the effects of colors and patterns, we asked crowd workers to estimate the weight in each image. For the analysis, we controlled potential confounds by matching images in pairs where the two images differ with respect to color or pattern, but are similar with respect to other relevant aspects. We created image pairs in two ways: firstly, observationally, i.e., from two real images; and secondly, experimentally, by manipulating the color or pattern of clothing in a real image via photo editing. Based on our analysis, we conclude that dark clothes indeed decrease perceived weight slightly but statistically significantly, and horizontal stripes have no discernible effect compared to solid light-colored clothes. These results contribute to advancing the debate around the effect of specific clothing colors and patterns and thus provide empirical grounds for everyday fashion decisions. Moreover, our work gives an outlook on the vast opportunities of using crowd sourcing in the modern fashion industry. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T07:29:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-744c3d1088ee49169feb92befa6e37b3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2688-5255 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T07:29:47Z |
| publishDate | 2020-09-01 |
| publisher | Tsinghua University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Social Computing |
| spelling | doaj.art-744c3d1088ee49169feb92befa6e37b32022-12-22T04:36:56ZengTsinghua University PressJournal of Social Computing2688-52552020-09-0111537010.23919/JSC.2020.0006Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight PerceptionKirill Martynov0Kiran Garimella1Robert West2<addr-line>Google, D-80636 Munich</addr-line>, <country>Germany</country> (work done at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Technische Universität München (TUM)).<institution>Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)</institution>, <city>Cambridge</city>, <state>MA</state> <postal-code>02139</postal-code>, <country>USA</country>.<institution>EPFL, CH-1004 Lausanne</institution>, <country>Switzerland</country>.In many societies, appearing slim (corresponding to a small body-mass index) is considered attractive.The fashion industry has been attempting to cater to this trend by designing outfits that can enhance the appearance of slimness. Two anecdotal rules, widespread in the world of fashion, are to choose dark clothes and avoid horizontal stripes, in order to appear slim. Thus far, empirical evidence has been unable to conclusively determine the validity of these rules, and there is consequently much controversy regarding the impact of both color and patterns on the visual perception of weight. In this paper, we aim to close this gap by presenting the results from a series of large-scale crowdsourcing studies that investigate the above two claims. We gathered a dataset of around 1000 images of people from the Web together with their ground-truth weight and height as well as clothing attributes about colors and patterns. To elicit the effects of colors and patterns, we asked crowd workers to estimate the weight in each image. For the analysis, we controlled potential confounds by matching images in pairs where the two images differ with respect to color or pattern, but are similar with respect to other relevant aspects. We created image pairs in two ways: firstly, observationally, i.e., from two real images; and secondly, experimentally, by manipulating the color or pattern of clothing in a real image via photo editing. Based on our analysis, we conclude that dark clothes indeed decrease perceived weight slightly but statistically significantly, and horizontal stripes have no discernible effect compared to solid light-colored clothes. These results contribute to advancing the debate around the effect of specific clothing colors and patterns and thus provide empirical grounds for everyday fashion decisions. Moreover, our work gives an outlook on the vast opportunities of using crowd sourcing in the modern fashion industry.https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.23919/JSC.2020.0006clothingfashionweight perceptionbody sizecrowdsourcing |
| spellingShingle | Kirill Martynov Kiran Garimella Robert West Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception Journal of Social Computing clothing fashion weight perception body size crowdsourcing |
| title | Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception |
| title_full | Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception |
| title_fullStr | Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception |
| title_full_unstemmed | Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception |
| title_short | Darks and Stripes: Effects of Clothing on Weight Perception |
| title_sort | darks and stripes effects of clothing on weight perception |
| topic | clothing fashion weight perception body size crowdsourcing |
| url | https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.23919/JSC.2020.0006 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kirillmartynov darksandstripeseffectsofclothingonweightperception AT kirangarimella darksandstripeseffectsofclothingonweightperception AT robertwest darksandstripeseffectsofclothingonweightperception |