Coleen's real women

Last night I sat down to with my wife to watch ‘Coleen’s real women’. The premise of the show is for Coleen McLoughlin to find ‘real’ women and pitch them against models to win a modeling contract. Each week she has a new challenge, some she wins and others she loses.

Whilst watching this I was reminded of a research study I conducted a few years ago. The premise of the study was to see how easily people’s opinions of Art could be changed by how it was presented to them.

Approximately 20 people were asked a number of random questions and within these they were shown a set of 10 little known paintings. They were asked to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 for preference.

Two weeks after the study was first carried out the same participants were shown the same set of pictures. This time the pictures that they had rated as their least favourite were given long, detailed descriptions explaining brush strokes, texture and choice of paint. Those paintings that they had rated higher were given shorter descriptions.

The idea was to see if people’s opinions could be changed within a matter of weeks by the way something was presented to them.

This was found to be true in this study, people consistently rated their least favorite painting much higher on the second rating, thus showing that people can be influenced by others when choosing what they like.

I was reminded of this study whilst watch ‘Coleen’s real women’. The two people choosing the model they would like for their campaign turned down what we though were very suitable models that fitted their brief.

I find it interesting to see how people who are connected with art in any guise choose what they think people will like or not like. It would appear that these industries are very subjective.

If a person has worked in an industry for a long time does it give them a better sense of what other people will like, or at the end of the day is it just their opinion, their personal preference? What makes someone an expert in art, fashion, photography, design? Of course there is a real technical skill that many people have to acquire, but for those that are critics, do they always get it right, should we believe them, or is it just about individual taste?

These creative industries like fashion, art and design are shaped by a small number of people who make choices on behalf of us all about what they think we will prefer and respond to. Watching the show last night I realised how much of an impact these people can have on shaping what we see – in the current climate of concern around the ‘size 0’ issue, perhaps it is these people – who make decisions about what image they want their brand to portray – rather than the models / actresses themselves who need to change their view of what we the public as a whole will respond to.