Color harmony in two‐piece garments

Using a categorical scale of 10 U, we have assessed color harmony in two‐piece garments (jackets‐trousers) considering a vicenarian and a quinquagenarian style. The experiment was performed by a panel of 59 Chinese observers (26 males and 33 females) with normal color vision and ages ranging 20–78 years, considering 300 color combinations for each of the two styles. For a given color combination, comparing results in the vicenarian/quinquagenarian styles for female/male observers, and observers below/above 45 years old, we found generally higher harmony scores for the vicenarian style, male observers, and observers older than 45 years. We found statistically significant differences (Welch two‐sample t test, P < 0.001) between color‐harmony results for the vicenarian and quinquagenarian styles, as well as considering the scores reported both by male/female observers and by observers below/above 45 years old. We propose a very simple lineal model fitting our current results with an average root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.70 U in our 10‐unit scale, which is below the one achieved by other complex models previously proposed, and also below the inter‐ and intra‐observer variability in our experiment. From our total experimental results, each of the five traditional color‐harmony principles (complementary hues and equal lightness, chroma, tone, and hue) was found to be valid at a low percentage (53–58% of the cases). © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 42, 498–511, 2017