Fashion stylists advise clothing colours according to personal categories that depend on skin, hair and eye colour. These categories are not defined scientifically, and advised colours are inconsistent. Such caveats may explain the lack of formal tests of clothing colour aesthetics. We assessed whether observers preferred clothing colours that are linked to variation in melanin levels among White women. For this, we presented 12 women's faces: six with fair skin (relatively lower in melanin) and six with tanned skin (relatively higher in melanin). Across two experiments, observers (N = 96 and 75) selected the colour (hue and saturation or hue and value) of simulated clothing that most suited the skin tone of each face. Observers showed strong preferences for red and blue hues, and in addition favoured ‘cool’ blue hues to match fair skin and ‘warm’ orange/red hues to match tanned skin. This finding suggests that skin tone can determine colour preferences for clothes.

时尚造型师会根据个人的肤色、头发和眼睛的颜色来推荐服装颜色。这些类别没有科学定义，建议的颜色也不一致。这样的警告可以解释为什么缺乏对服装色彩美学的正式测试。我们评估了观察者是否更喜欢与白人女性黑色素水平变化相关的服装颜色。为此，我们展示了 12 张女性的脸：六张皮肤白皙（黑色素含量相对较低）和六张晒黑的皮肤（黑色素含量相对较高）。在两个实验中，观察者 ( N = 96 和 75) 选择最适合每个人脸肤色的模拟服装的颜色（色相和饱和度或色相和值）。观察者显示出对红色和蓝色色调的强烈偏好，此外更喜欢“冷”蓝色调来搭配白皙的皮肤，以及“暖”橙色/红色调来搭配晒黑的皮肤。这一发现表明肤色可以决定衣服的颜色偏好。