Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Using Fashion to Attract Men

We recently succumbed to a pretty innocuous impulse buy: blue nail polish.

We tried it out one week, and, to our surprise, almost every male we came in touch with—young, old, and ambiguously in between—commented on it.

We always assumed guys were oblivious when it came to things like cosmetics for fingernails, but men noticed it, literally (on one occasion) from across the room.

This struck us as strange—especially since we’ve posted before about men being turned off by funky fashions (like the foreheadband).

And when we worked up the nerve to ask the guys about it, they all shrugged their shoulders and responded with some variation on “I dunno. It’s cool.”

It turns out that subtle, slightly subversive accessories might be great conversation starters. It’s almost like men are attracted to shiny objects—they seem to be intrigued by things that jump out at them.

But we’re still not advocating trendy-for-the-sake-of-being-trendy pick-up outfits. In fact, the trendier it is, the less likely it is to catch a guy’s attention. They’ve seen forheadbands before. And they still look ridiculous.

But guys sometimes see blue nail polish, boyish narrow-brimmed hats, and other unexpected fashion statements as a sign of a hidden wild streak. And that’s exactly what guys fantasize about: a woman who comes off as cool and composed in public, but then really lets loose during sex (the lady in the street, freak in the bed).

3 comments:

  1. There was an article in the Times a few years back in which evolutionary scientists suggested an explanation as to why certain male butterflies or peacocks were attracted to their female counterparts. The strongest component of attraction, according to their studies, was the brightness/variation/combination of the female's skin color(s). The study went on to conclude that similar traits are found in humans. Men are biologically prone to be attracted to the wild, weird, and colorful (and that includes nail polish).

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  2. so true: men love my colorful shoes

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  3. I've been wearing electric blue nailpolish for years and it is, indeed, catnip for men.

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