Women likelier to wear jeans when ‘feeling blue’

Women dress differently depending on their mood and turn to jeans when they’re feeling depressed, a new study has claimed. The study found that ‘happy’ clothes - ones that made women feel good - were well-cut, figure enhancing, and made from bright and beautiful fabrics. However, more than half of women put on a pair of jeans when they are feeling depressed. Scientists who set out to discover how the way a woman dresses expresses her mood found that 51 percent of women will reach for their jeans when they are feeling down. In a low mood a woman is also much more likely to wear a baggy top and a sweatshirt or jumper. Almost six out of ten women said they would wear a baggy top when depressed, yet a mere 2 percent would wear one when feeling happy. 100 women were asked what they wore when feeling low and more than half of them said jeans. Only a third would wear jeans when feeling happy. Women also revealed they would be 10 times more likely to put on a favourite dress when happy than when depressed. “Jeans don’t look great on everyone,” the Mirror quoted Karen Pine, co-author of the study from the University of Hertfordshire as saying. “They are often poorly cut and badly fitting. Jeans can signal that the wearer hasn’t bothered with their appearance. “People who are depressed often lose interest in how they look and don’t wish to stand out, so the correlation between depression and wearing jeans is understandable. “Most importantly, this research suggests that we can dress for happiness, but that might mean ditching the jeans,” she said. The study also found that twice as many women said they would wear a hat when happy than when depressed. Five times as many women said they would wear their favourite shoes when happy than when depressed. The psychologists say women should try to put on “happy” clothes even when they are fed up to lighten their mood. “This finding shows that clothing doesn’t just influence others, it reflects and influences the wearer’s mood too. “Many of the women in this study felt they could alter their mood by changing what they wore. “This demonstrates the psychological power of clothing and how the right choices could influence a person’s happiness,” Pine said. The women in the study were aged from 21 to 64 and almost three quarters of them shopped for clothes at least every few months, mostly on the high street or on the Internet.