From Grant Stainer
In the interests of experimental repeatability I decided to test the idea that women find men wearing red more attractive than those wearing other colours, as mentioned in Helen Thomson’s article (12 February, p 36).
I bought myself a plain red shirt and went to the local bar on a Saturday night. Despite remaining there for 2 hours, not a single woman indicated any interest in me. The only woman who even spoke to me was the barmaid from whom I ordered a drink. This suggests that red shirts are not attractive to women.
To be fair, other factors may have been at work. Firstly, the ratio of men to women in the bar was 16 to 1, including the two barmaids. Next, I am single, and your article mentioned that single men are less attractive to women, so this may have added to the lack of interest.
Finally, I was alone. The article also said that a man’s attractiveness is enhanced by attention from other women, so my going solo surely didn’t help my chances.
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Although this evidence does not disprove the theory that red shirts are attractive to women, it does contribute evidence against the hypothesis. I intend to repeat the experiment again, albeit infrequently.
Merredin, Western Australia
