Welcome to Dilara Unfiltered

Today I want to talk about an article I came across while researching useful studies and research around my project: The Role of Gender Labels and Gendered Appearances in Children’s Social Inferences by Jenna Alton, Andrei Cimpian and Lucas Payne Butler. Published in 2025, the article looks at the distinction between gender labels and gendered appearances, and how children use these two types of information when making assumptions about other people.

By gender labels, the researchers mean explicitly being told that someone is a “boy” or a “girl”. Gendered appearance, on the other hand, refers to stereotypically masculine or feminine visual characteristics. What I found particularly interesting was what happens when these two forms of information contradict each other. If someone is labelled as a boy but looks stereotypically feminine, which piece of information becomes more influential? Does the label determine how children understand that person, or can appearance override, challenge or complicate it?

The research shows that both gender labels and appearance can influence children’s social inferences, but their relative importance changes depending on what children are being asked to infer.

What immediately interested me was the finding that appearance is definitely not neutral. The children in the study used people’s appearances to make assumptions about their personality, preferences, behaviours and gendered characteristics. The researchers deliberately created characters whose gender labels and appearances could contradict each other. For example, a character could be labelled as a boy while having a stereotypically feminine appearance. The children were then asked to make assumptions about what these characters might be like or what they might enjoy, such as which activities they might prefer or which characteristics they might display.

What is particularly important here is that the researchers were not simply asking children whether somebody looked like a boy or a girl. They were looking at what other information children extracted from someone’s appearance. Appearance became a basis for making assumptions about behaviour, personality and preferences.

This made me think about colour in a slightly different way. The study used culturally gendered visual codes, with colour working alongside clothing, accessories and hairstyles to create different gendered appearances. This suggests that colour does not necessarily need to have one fixed meaning on its own. Instead, it can exist within a much broader system of culturally gendered visual language. Colour becomes one element within a wider visual system through which gender can be communicated, recognised and interpreted.

So it is not necessarily as simple as saying that one colour automatically represents one gender. It is more about how colour becomes part of a wider set of visual cues that we have learned to read in particular ways. Colour, clothing, accessories, hairstyles and other forms of presentation can work together to create an appearance that carries social meaning.

One of the findings that interested me most was that femininity appeared to be more appearance-dependent. When children were asked to make inferences about feminine attributes, gendered appearance was substantially more influential than the gender label. In the study, the appearance effect was almost twice as large as the label effect.

This suggests something really interesting about the relationship between femininity and appearance. It made me think about how visual choices, including colour, can become connected to identity and gendered expectations. If appearance becomes a source of information about somebody’s identity, personality or behaviour, then the visual choices that we make are not necessarily as individual or neutral as they might initially appear.

The colours we wear, the combinations we create and the visual language we choose to present ourselves through can all exist within a set of pre-existing cultural expectations.

Another finding that really stood out to me was that boys’ appearance became increasingly meaningful with age. The research found that older boys relied more strongly on gendered appearance cues, particularly when making inferences about feminine characteristics, while girls’ reliance on appearance remained relatively stable.

The researchers suggest that this could relate to the stronger social policing of gender expression that boys experience, particularly around feminine presentation. As children grow older, boys may become increasingly aware that certain forms of appearance are more strongly sanctioned or considered less acceptable for them.

This made me think about something that is very relevant to my own research. If certain colours, styles or forms of self-expression are repeatedly presented within our social environment as unusual, inappropriate or risky for particular people, could this make individuals more sensitive to these visual codes and more likely to avoid or respond differently to them?

The study does not demonstrate that children are directly conditioned to avoid particular colours or styles. I do not want to make that claim. However, the findings raise the possibility that repeated exposure to social expectations, together with the consequences of gender non-conformity, could make people increasingly attentive to appearance-based cues.

This is where I see a potential connection to my own research.

If these learned associations become stronger or more noticeable as people grow up, they could potentially affect the way individuals make their own visual choices later on. Something that might initially seem like a simple preference for a certain colour could potentially be influenced by a much larger network of social expectations, associations and learned responses.

This is one of the reasons why I found this research particularly useful for my intervention. My research is not trying to prove that a particular colour is masculine or feminine. Instead, I am interested in understanding how these associations might become embedded in us, how we respond to them, and whether we continue to reproduce, negotiate or reject them when making our own visual choices.

Finding research that considers how people respond to these kinds of social conditions is therefore useful not only for understanding my research question, but also for thinking about how I approach the people participating in my intervention.

It makes me think more carefully about my target audience. What assumptions might they already have about colour? What visual associations might feel completely natural to them because they have encountered them repeatedly? Which colours might feel comfortable, and which might feel unexpectedly uncomfortable or unsuitable for representing themselves?

It also affects the way I want to communicate the intervention. Rather than giving participants questions that tell them what they are supposed to think about colour, I want to create a situation where these associations can emerge naturally through their own choices.

This is one of the reasons why the participatory aspect of my intervention has become increasingly important to me. Making gives participants a way of expressing something before necessarily having to explain it. Their choices, combinations and hesitations can potentially reveal things that a direct question about gender, identity or colour might not.

So, for me, this article is not simply useful because it tells me that children associate appearance with gender. It is useful because it makes me question how deeply these visual associations are learned, how they influence the way we read other people, and potentially how they influence the way we read and present ourselves. And that is exactly the space that I want my intervention to begin exploring.

Reference List
Alton, J., Cimpian, A. and Butler, L.P. (2025) ‘The role of gender labels and gendered appearances in children’s social inferences’, Cognition, 265, 106281. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106281. Available at: https:// www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027725002215 (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

COLOUR AS A CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENT

Colour often feels personal. We experience it as a preference, an aesthetic response or a way of expressing ourselves. Yet the colours surrounding us do not appear randomly. Seasonal fashion palettes, commercially available garments, Colour of the Year announcements and wider visual trends are shaped through networks of colour forecasters, corporations, designers, manufacturers, retailers, media platforms and cultural institutions.

So, who decides which colours become visible, desirable and commercially available?

Identifying the people and organisations involved is only the beginning. The more interesting part is understanding how these decisions are made. What influences the selection of a particular colour? How much freedom does an individual decision-maker actually have? How much of the final outcome is shaped by corporate strategy, market expectations, consumer data, manufacturing limitations, cultural forecasting or economic interests?

In other words, where does individual creative agency end and institutional influence begin?

WHO SHAPES COLOUR TRENDS?

The colour forecasting industry is made up of a relatively small number of influential organisations. These include Pantone, WGSN, Coloro, Intercolor, Peclers Paris and Trendstop. Their work is connected to fashion brands, manufacturers, retailers, interior companies, beauty brands, product designers and media platforms.

These organisations do not all operate in exactly the same way. Some focus on colour standards, some on trend forecasting, some on consumer research and some on translating colour predictions into commercial strategies. Together, however, they form part of a wider system through which certain colours become more visible and commercially available than others.

A colour may begin as a forecast, become part of a seasonal palette, appear in design presentations, move into product development and eventually reach shops, websites and social media. By the time consumers encounter it, the colour may have already passed through several layers of interpretation and selection.

This makes colour less like an isolated aesthetic decision and more like the outcome of a network involving cultural conditions, trend forecasting, institutional interpretation, corporate decision-making, product development, retail availability, media circulation and consumer exposure.

REPRESENTATION IS NOT THE SAME AS INFLUENCE

These questions become particularly important when we consider who occupies positions of cultural and corporate decision-making power.

Historically, senior corporate and institutional leadership has been disproportionately white and male. Although many organisations are becoming more diverse, numerical representation does not automatically mean equal influence. The presence of women or people from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds in leadership positions does not necessarily mean that their perspectives are included in strategic decisions. Research on women directors also suggests that their contribution depends heavily on the openness of the board and the behaviour of its chairperson (Nielsen and Huse, 2010).

Being present in the room does not necessarily mean having the power to shape what happens in that room.

This is why demographic diversity alone cannot be treated as evidence of genuinely diverse decision-making. The same issue extends beyond gender. Ethnicity, culture, geography, socioeconomic background, education and lived experience can all influence how people interpret the world around them.

Individuals do not experience visual information from a completely neutral position. Their memories, cultural references, values and aspirations can affect what they notice, value or consider desirable. This does not mean that a person’s gender or ethnicity determines their aesthetic preferences. That would be far too simplistic. However, different lived experiences may contribute to differences in what people notice, prioritise and imagine as possible.

BACKGROUND, POWER AND AGENCY

The question of individual influence can also be considered through the Upper Echelons perspective. Hambrick and Mason (1984) argue that organisational outcomes and strategic choices can be partially influenced by the backgrounds of senior managers. This suggests that the experiences, values and perspectives of people in leadership positions may shape the organisations they lead.

However, this does not mean that senior executives have unlimited freedom. Research on managerial discretion shows that executives do not have the same level of influence over every type of decision. Their power depends on the organisation, the industry, the market and the specific decision being made (Crossland and Hambrick, 2011).

A creative director, executive or colour forecaster may therefore have significant influence over how a colour is interpreted, but their choices may still be shaped by manufacturing costs, client expectations, brand identity, consumer research, production timelines and commercial risk.

The colour system should consequently not be understood as a simple hierarchy in which one powerful person decides what everyone else will see. It is better understood as a network of people, organisations and constraints, where the final colour that reaches consumers is the result of multiple decisions.

CLOUD DANCER: A CASE STUDY

The 2026 Pantone Colour of the Year offers a useful case study. Pantone selected PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer, an airy white associated with calm, simplicity, reflection, clarity, creativity and the possibility of a fresh start (Pantone, 2025).

This makes Cloud Dancer interesting beyond its appearance. The point is not to decide whether the colour is objectively good or bad. Nor is it to suggest that one individual personally caused the colour to be selected. Instead, Cloud Dancer allows us to examine the cultural assumptions and institutional processes through which certain visual qualities become desirable.

Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, has publicly explained Cloud Dancer through ideas of quietness, clarity and renewal (Pantone, 2025). Her role makes her an important figure within the colour forecasting system. However, it would be too simple to assume that the final decision is entirely hers.

How much decision-making power does one person have within a larger organisation? How is the decision negotiated? What kinds of research, market information, client expectations and industry pressures influence it? How does the colour move from a forecast into products and eventually into consumers’ everyday environments?

These questions shift the focus from the individual decision-maker to the wider system.

FROM FORECAST TO CONSUMER

The final stage of this process is particularly important. If the colours available to consumers have already been filtered through a relatively small number of forecasting and commercial systems, then personal preference may not be completely independent from the environment in which that preference develops.

This does not necessarily mean that corporations deliberately try to make society conformist, passive or “robotic”. That would be a strong claim and would require specific evidence. However, it does raise an important issue: repeated exposure can make certain colours feel normal, familiar and desirable.

A colour that appears repeatedly in fashion, interiors, advertising, packaging and social media may begin to feel like an obvious choice. Other colours may become less visible, less available or less socially familiar.

This does not mean that consumers have no agency. People can reject trends, reinterpret them and create their own combinations. Colour forecasting can also introduce new possibilities and provide people with fresh tools for self-expression.

The tension is that the same system can both expand and limit visual choice. It can introduce new colours while also concentrating attention around a relatively narrow set of commercially supported options. It can encourage creativity while simultaneously making certain forms of creativity more visible and profitable than others.

COLOUR, IDENTITY AND POWER

Colour is therefore more than an aesthetic detail. It sits at the intersection of identity, cultural experience, institutional power, creativity, commerce and social conditioning.

The people and organisations involved in colour forecasting do not simply predict what society will like. They also participate in creating the visual conditions through which preferences develop. Their decisions influence what becomes available, what becomes familiar and what becomes easy to find.

This is why it is important to look not only at who is represented within decision-making spaces, but also at who has the power to influence outcomes. A diverse board, team or organisation does not automatically produce diverse results. What matters is whether different perspectives are heard, taken seriously and allowed to affect the final decision.

The colours around us are shaped by people, but also by systems. They emerge from the interaction between individual perception, organisational power, commercial pressure, cultural interpretation and material constraints.

Understanding this process does not mean rejecting colour trends or assuming that all commercial colour systems are harmful. It means becoming more aware of how visual environments are constructed and how they may influence the ways we understand, express and develop our identities.

Ultimately, the question is not simply who chooses the colours around us, but who has the power to make those choices matter, which perspectives enter the process, which are excluded, and how those decisions eventually become part of the visual world in which individuals construct and express themselves.

REFERENCES

Crossland, C. and Hambrick, D.C. (2011) ‘Differences in managerial discretion across countries: How nation-level institutions affect the degree to which CEOs matter’, Strategic Management Journal, 32(8), pp. 797–819. Available at: https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smj.913 (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Hambrick, D.C. and Mason, P.A. (1984) ‘Upper echelons: The organisation as a reflection of its top managers’, Academy of Management Review, 9(2), pp. 193–206. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/258434 (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Nielsen, S. and Huse, M. (2010) ‘The contribution of women on boards of directors: Going beyond the surface’, Corporate Governance: An International Review, 18(2), pp. 136–148. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8683.2010.00784.x (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Pantone (2025) ‘Pantone Colour of the Year 2026: Cloud Dancer’. Available at: https://www.pantone.com/eu/en-eu/color-of-the-year/2026 (Accessed: 10 February 2026).

At a point where I felt that I was getting lost in my own project, or more accurately, that I could no longer really find myself within it, I experienced a few things that reminded me of the value of communication. In a way, this brought me back to one of the fundamental purposes of the project itself: reinforcing open communication and fostering healthy, respectful and understanding ways of communicating with one another, while also creating space for us to better understand ourselves.

The gradual loss of colour from our surroundings, and particularly from the clothes and objects we interact with every day, has become a subject that has increasingly caught my attention. It is also something that I have started to see more and more people noticing. News outlets, YouTube videos, articles, scientific research and books have all begun discussing different aspects of how our visual environments are changing. People are becoming more aware of it, and I believe that awareness is the first step towards change.

With this project, I want to become part of that transition from awareness into action. Over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to speak to many people who were curious about my project and asked me to explain what I was researching. What surprised me was how consistently people connected with the subject. Almost everyone I spoke to had something to say about it, agreed that they had noticed some form of this change, and became curious about where the project would lead and what its findings might reveal.

This made me realise that people are genuinely curious about what this increasing visual muting might mean. What are the effects of it on us? How does it influence the way we feel, behave or interact with our surroundings? And if we are able to identify and understand these effects more clearly, perhaps we can begin to think about how, and whether we want to respond to them.

At the same time, I have become increasingly aware that the way I describe this project can unintentionally exclude people. The phrase “a colourless world” can suggest that colourlessness is a universal experience, when in reality our relationships with colour are incredibly different. There are many different reasons why someone’s visual environment may already be less colourful, and colour itself is experienced and perceived differently by everyone.

I therefore do not want this project to suggest that a world with less colour is inherently negative, or that people who experience the world differently because of visual impairment, colour vision deficiency or other factors have a worse experience of it. That is not the argument I am trying to make. My interest is much more systematic: I am interested in the psychological implications of changes in the colour and tonal range of the everyday environments we collectively inhabit.

This distinction became particularly important through the conversations I have had during my research. I have not only spoken to people with what might be considered typical colour vision; I have also spoken to visually impaired people and people with colour vision deficiencies. These conversations made me realise that a muted environment can also be experienced differently depending on how someone perceives colour, contrast and tonal variation in the first place.

In that sense, the project is not necessarily about having a particular type of vision. It is about being part of an environment where visual choices are collectively made and experienced. We live in a society, and our environments are shared. The way one person experiences or responds to their surroundings can influence the people around them, just as the choices made by others shape our own environments.

This is also where communication becomes important again. We need to communicate with one another in order to live, work and exist within the systems and communities we share. If the visual environments we create influence how we feel and behave, then they can also influence how we interact with each other.

Ultimately, I am not trying to argue that colour is good and colourlessness is bad. I am trying to understand what happens when the visual environment around us changes, how differently people experience that change, and what these changes might mean for the way we understand ourselves and communicate with one another.

In July, after separate conversations with Cecilia and Zuleika, I realised that speaking directly with people working within the industry could help me understand my research from a different perspective. I also recognised that these conversations could significantly influence the decisions I was making around my intervention.

I therefore conducted an interview with two people from Suwen, a Turkish lingerie brand, one from the marketing team and one from the design team. The interview helped me look more closely at how the colours surrounding us are actually selected and what happens behind those decisions.

We discussed colour trends, customer demand, how brands respond to these demands, and the actions taken as a result. More importantly, I wanted to understand the decision-making process behind the colours we encounter in everyday products. To what extent are these choices driven by customers? How much are they shaped by sales and commercial considerations? And, when specifically thinking about women’s lingerie, how are certain feelings or ideas about femininity communicated through colour and design? Can these choices contribute to more gender-performative ideas of femininity?

The interview gave me a much clearer understanding of the systems behind the colours we interact with. It helped me see colour not only as an individual preference, but also as something shaped by wider commercial, cultural and social decisions.

This perspective has become particularly useful for my intervention and for the analysis of the colours participants choose during the bracelet-making process. Understanding how colour choices are produced and communicated at an industry level allows me to look at people’s own colour preferences from a wider perspective, rather than treating them as purely personal or isolated decisions.

I will now share the questions I prepared for this interview below:

Colour: Presence, Absence & Change

1. What are currently the most and least used colours across Suwen’s products? If possible, could you share how the use and sales performance of these colours have changed over the past 5–10 years?
2. Have there been colours that were previously part of Suwen’s collections but were eventually completely discontinued? If so, which colours were they, and what led to their disappearance?
3. Have there been colours that had never been used by Suwen before, were introduced into a collection, and then performed significantly better than expected in terms of sales? If so, which colours were they, and how would you explain their success?
4. Have there been colours that received significantly less interest than expected when they were first introduced? In such cases, are the colours completely abandoned, or are they tested again in different shades, products or seasons?
5. Have there been colours that were once popular, disappeared from collections, and were later reintroduced? If so, do you think the meaning or perception of that colour among consumers had also changed?
6. When deciding whether a colour should exist within a collection, how influential are factors beyond sales data, such as fashion trends, cultural changes, consumer psychology and the social associations attached to a colour?

Colour & Gender

1. Do you think the ways in which colours such as pink, blue, red, black and white are associated with femininity and masculinity have changed in recent years? Do you see evidence of this change in Suwen’s sales or consumer data?
2. Do you think perceiving a colour as “feminine” affects how likely consumers are to choose it in lingerie? Or are you observing consumers moving away from traditional gendered colour codes?
3. Have you observed a shift in Suwen’s colour palette, such as a decrease in traditionally feminine colours or an increase in more gender-neutral colours? If so, what do you think has driven this change?
4. Do you think defining a colour as “feminine” can help women express their femininity while simultaneously limiting femininity to certain visual codes?

Colour & Gender Performance

1. Do you think the colour a person chooses can influence how they express their gender identity or femininity to others?
2. In a product that is directly connected to the body, such as lingerie, could colour choice become a way for someone to express “the kind of woman they want to be”?
3. Do you think choosing a traditionally feminine colour versus deliberately rejecting those colour codes can create different forms of identity expression?
4. Do you observe a difference between consumers choosing colours that make them “feel feminine” and those choosing colours that make them feel “strong, free or different”?
5. Do you think a woman can simultaneously want to appear feminine while also distancing herself from traditional ideas of femininity? Could lingerie and colour choices communicate this kind of identity conflict?

Colour, Identity & Personal Meaning

1. When a colour is discontinued or reintroduced over time, do you see this purely as a commercial or trend-driven change, or could it also reflect a change in the meanings society attaches to that colour?
2. For example, if a colour that was previously perceived as “too feminine”, “too young” or otherwise undesirable becomes popular again years later, could this indicate that the concept of femininity itself has changed?
3. Do you think consumers can assign a completely personal meaning to a colour that differs from the meaning the brand intended to communicate?
4. For example, could a consumer choose pink not because of its association with femininity, but because of a personal memory, person or experience? Do you think these personal associations play an important role in consumer behaviour?
5. In your view, who creates the meaning of colour: brands, society, or individuals through their personal experiences?

Lingerie, Body & Identity

1. Since lingerie is often chosen primarily for oneself rather than for public visibility, could this make colour more significant as a form of identity expression?
2. Do you think there is a difference, in terms of identity, between choosing a lingerie colour that only the wearer sees and choosing a colour for clothing that is visible to others?
3. Could someone choosing a colour in lingerie that they would not normally wear be interpreted as discovering or experimenting with a different aspect of themselves or a different identity?
4. Could colour in lingerie act as a mediator between a person’s existing identity and the identity they want to communicate or experience?

Empowerment & Gender Expectations

1. Do you see the use of traditionally feminine colours in Suwen’s communication as a way of supporting women’s empowerment, or does it risk reproducing traditional expectations of femininity?
2. Can a woman consciously choosing traditionally feminine codes such as pink, red or lace be considered a form of empowerment? Similarly, could rejecting these codes also be a form of empowerment?
3. Do you think empowerment is more closely connected to adopting particular feminine codes, or to having the freedom to choose whether or not to adopt them?
4. Around 90% of Suwen’s employees are women, with women also strongly represented at management and board level. Does this internal representation of women influence the brand’s understanding of femininity and empowerment? Does it shape the image of women that Suwen presents to consumers?

Women’s Sport & Alternative Femininity

1. How do you view Suwen’s support of women’s football and volleyball in terms of expanding the brand’s representation of women beyond lingerie, beauty and aesthetics towards strength, movement and physical performance?
2. Can the visibility of strong and athletic female bodies contribute to changing traditional perceptions of the female body?
3. Can a lingerie brand supporting women’s sports contribute to expanding the image of the “feminine woman” into a broader range of identities?
4. As women’s sports become more visible, could placing traditionally feminine colours such as pink alongside concepts such as strength, athleticism and achievement change the social meaning of those colours?
5. Do you think there is still an identity conflict in society around women being feminine, strong, athletic and independent at the same time?
6. Do you see Suwen’s support of women’s sports as a way of expanding traditional definitions of femininity?

Overall Perspective

1. Looking at Suwen’s colour history and consumer preferences, is there a particular colour or colour shift that you believe reflects changes in the ways women define and express themselves?
2. Do you view the changes you see in colour sales primarily as shifts in consumer preferences, or could they also be interpreted as indicators of broader changes in society’s understanding of femininity, the body and identity?
3. Finally, do you think the colour a woman chooses today says more about “what kind of woman she is expected to be”, or about “what kind of woman she wants to be”?

Data & Material Request

1. If possible, could you share the changes in the top-selling and lowest-selling colours over the past 5–10 years?
2. If possible, could you provide examples of colours that were completely discontinued, later reintroduced, or introduced for the first time and achieved particularly strong sales?
3. Would it be possible to share any data, charts, reports or visual materials showing how the use and sales performance of colours have changed over time?

The Day of the Intervention

The intervention started quite slowly. During the first 30 minutes at Granary Square, there was almost no one willing to join the bracelet-making activity. After this initial period, engagement started to increase slightly, with more people stopping to interact with the activity. However, a large part of this engagement came from children, who were interested in the beads and the process but were not part of my intended audience of London residents aged 18 and above. Over approximately two hours, I was only able to involve three adult participants.

This made me reconsider the location and the type of environment in which I was asking people to give their time and engage with the activity. I moved the intervention to Regent’s Park, where I thought people might be more comfortable slowing down, spending time on an activity and sharing their thoughts and experiences. This change in location made the intervention more successful, and I was able to involve eight adult participants. This also showed me that the physical and social context of an intervention can influence how willing people are to participate and how much time they are willing to give to an activity.

I had prepared a 25-question survey to use alongside the bracelet-making activity. However, rather than requiring participants to complete the questions in a formal survey format, I also offered the option of going through the questions as a discussion for those who preferred a more conversational approach. This allowed participants to explain their thoughts in their own words and made the interaction feel less structured when appropriate. I could therefore use the same questions as a framework while adapting the way they were delivered depending on the participant.

Choice

Participants were given the freedom to choose their own colours, beads and combinations without being given predetermined meanings. I wanted to see what people would naturally gravitate towards and whether their choices were based on personal preference, aesthetics or existing associations. Participants selected a wide range of colours, with many initially choosing colours simply because they liked them or felt that they worked well together.

Process

The decision-making process was often more revealing than the final bracelet itself. Participants experimented with different combinations, changed their minds, rejected certain colours and rearranged beads as they saw the bracelet developing. This showed that colour preferences were not always fixed from the beginning. In some cases, meaning and preference developed through the act of making rather than being something participants already had a clear idea about.

Meaning

As participants explained their choices, colours became connected to personal memories, emotions, relationships, personality and aesthetic preferences. Some participants also brought up cultural and gendered associations, while others were aware of these associations but distinguished them from what a colour personally meant to them. This became particularly important in understanding the difference between a colour having a socially recognised meaning and a colour having an individual meaning.

Identity

The bracelet-making process showed that colour could be used to express different aspects of identity. Some participants chose colours that they felt represented who they already were, while others chose combinations based on how they wanted to feel or how they wanted to be perceived. The process also created moments where participants reconsidered their choices and discovered meanings they had not initially thought about. This suggested that colour can be not only a reflection of identity, but also something through which identity can be explored and negotiated.

Audience

My intended audience was London residents aged 18 and above. The first iteration at Granary Square highlighted a difficulty in reaching this audience, as much of the engagement came from children rather than adults. Rather than treating this only as a problem with participation, I saw it as an opportunity to reconsider how the location affected people’s willingness to engage.

I chose Regent’s Park because I thought the environment might encourage people to slow down and be more comfortable giving their time and sharing personal thoughts. This proved more successful, with eight adult participants joining the activity compared to only three at Granary Square. Across both locations, I reached 11 participants aged 21–55: six were in their twenties, three were in their thirties and two were in their fifties. Two participants had colour blindness and one was hearing impaired. Although the sample was small, the intervention allowed me to engage with adults from different age groups and observe how differently people approached colour, meaning and self-expression.

Here are the results of the workshop:

Next, I would like to add the 25-question survey I had prepared for the day alongside the prompts and the poster I prepared for the workshop.

Questions

THE BRACELET

1. What does your bracelet represent?
   A person / A place / An object / A memory / An experience / A value / Other
2. Why did you choose to represent this?
3. Why did you choose these colours? What do they mean or feel like to you?
4. Was there a colour you were immediately drawn to? Why do you think you chose it?
5. Was there a colour you deliberately avoided? What made you reject it?
6. Was there a colour you kept going back to but did not use? Why?
7. Was there a colour you avoided but ended up using? What changed?
8. Are the meanings you associate with these colours mainly personal, or do some come from things you have learned from others, culture, media, or society?
   Mainly personal / A mixture of both / Mainly learned / Not sure

COLOUR & IDENTITY

9. What do these colours say about you?
10. Which colour in your bracelet feels most connected to your identity? Why?
11. Which colour feels least connected to your identity? Why?
12. Do any of your colour choices relate to how you see yourself, how you want to be seen, or how you think others see you?
13. If someone who did not know you looked at your bracelet, what would you want them to understand about you?
14. What, specifically, would you want them to understand?
15. Is there anything about you that your bracelet might communicate that you did not consciously intend?
16. Do you like the bracelet you made? Why or why not?

CONSCIOUS & SUBCONSCIOUS CHOICE

17. Please indicate how much you agree with each statement.
    1 = Strongly disagree / 5 = Strongly agree

• The colours I chose reflect how I see myself.
• My colour choices communicate something about my identity.
• Some of my colour choices felt instinctive rather than deliberate.
• Some of my colour choices were influenced by associations I was not consciously aware of.

18. Please indicate how much you agree with each statement.
    1 = Strongly disagree / 5 = Strongly agree

• I have learned that certain colours are associated with particular genders.
• Social or cultural expectations have influenced my colour preferences.
• Some meanings I associate with colour come from my own experiences.
• Some meanings I associate with colour come from culture, media, or other people.

19. Before this workshop, how much had you thought about why you choose particular colours?
    1 = Never thought about it / 5 = Thought about it extensively
20. After completing the workshop, how aware are you of your own colour choices?
    1 = Not more aware / 5 = Much more aware
21. Which choice in your bracelet feels the most intentional, and which feels the most instinctive or unplanned?
22. Did your finished bracelet communicate what you originally intended? What, if anything, changed?
23. Did the bracelet develop a meaning that you did not expect?
    Yes / No / Not sure

FINAL REFLECTION

24. What do you think your colour choices reveal about how you have learned to think about colour?
25. Thinking about the bracelet you created, what do your conscious and subconscious choices reveal about how you think about and how you have been programmed to think about colour?

The intervention I am currently conducting is therefore a bracelet-making workshop. The main purpose of this workshop comes directly from my research question:

How can participatory bracelet-making reveal how people use colour and visual combinations to express their personal identity?

The most important components of the workshop are the beads and, particularly, the colours of the beads. Since personal taste and preferences can vary significantly from person to person, I wanted to make sure that participants would have enough freedom when making their choices. For this reason, I am providing beads in a wide range of colours, as well as beads made from several different materials.

Rather than limiting participants to a specific colour palette or aesthetic, the intention is to give them enough variety to make choices that feel personal to them. The combinations they create, the colours they are drawn to, and the way they choose to put these elements together can then become part of the research itself.

The bracelet is therefore not simply the final product of the workshop. The process of choosing, combining and arranging the beads is just as important as the finished bracelet. Through this hands-on process, I hope to explore what kinds of visual decisions emerge when participants are given the freedom to create something that they can ultimately wear and carry with them.

You can find the beads used during the intervention below.

From the beginning of my project, I knew that I wanted my intervention to be hands-on. One of the things that interested me throughout my research was how the decisions we make while creating something, whether conscious or subconscious, can reveal a lot about our personality, identity, and the way we express ourselves.

My first idea was to create a T-shirt-making workshop, and even this idea went through several variations. Initially, I was thinking about working with T-shirts that were already colourful and exploring how participants might interact with or alter these colours. I then moved towards the idea of providing plain white T-shirts together with a selection of colours and paints, allowing participants to create their own designs on the T-shirts.

However, as I developed the idea further, I started thinking about what would happen to the outcome after the workshop. I wanted the intervention to result in something that was easier to carry, something participants could keep with them and integrate into their everyday lives. I also felt that having the object with them after the workshop could potentially encourage further reflection outside of the workshop environment.

This led me to the idea of a charm-making workshop. I began thinking about creating objects such as keychains or bag charms that participants could make themselves and then carry with them. Compared to a T-shirt, a charm felt like a more portable and personal outcome that could become part of someone’s everyday life.

However, upon reflecting on the charm-making idea, I realised that it might not appeal equally to everyone within my target audience. My audience includes individuals of all cultures, backgrounds, and genders, and I wanted the intervention to feel as inclusive and personally relevant as possible. This led me to take the idea one step further and eventually develop the intervention into a bracelet-making workshop.

Figure 1. Screenshot from Dazed’s social media app officially goes global (Dazed Digital, 2025). Source: Dazed Digital (2025).

Existing Networks

My research explores how algorithm-driven visual culture reshapes femininity, emotional expression, self image, and identity through aesthetic conformity, visual performance, and digital platform systems.

Existing networks relevant to this research include Dazed Club / Dazed Media, which functions as a creative networking platform connecting emerging photographers, artists, writers, stylists, and interdisciplinary creatives through community interaction, open calls, and events. Through this platform, I aim to engage with both its membership network and identify a creative whose work relates to visual identity, self-image, photography, or styling.

My research is also informed by visual artists such as Selman Hoşgör, whose collage-based work uses colour, fragmentation, and layered visual storytelling, and Laleper Aytek, whose black and white photographic practice explores atmosphere, contrast, and emotional visual tone.

Wellcome Collection provides an interdisciplinary network at the intersection of mental health, emotional wellbeing, identity, and creative public engagement, which is relevant to my project’s focus on perfectionism, emotional distress, and self image.

My research also engages with Prof. Jonathan Hardy and the Branded Content Research Hub (LCC), whose work on media policy, platform economies, branded content, digital advertising systems, and commercial visibility helps frame online visual culture as both a cultural and economic system.

Networks I Would Like to Develop

Moving forward, I want to expand my network through photographers, stylists, immersive media artists, influencers, researchers in psychology and digital culture, and independent creative platforms.

I also want to connect with participants from different cultural and social backgrounds to make the research more diverse and experience-based.

The aim is to build interdisciplinary conversations that can support both the theoretical and visual development of the project.

Engagement Plan

My engagement plan focuses on combining research with active audience participation and ongoing feedback.

This includes interviews, surveys, photography-based research, social media interaction, and visual experiments, alongside outreach through email, workshops, discussions, and creative communities.

I also plan to document meetings, feedback exchanges, and collaborative conversations throughout the project in order to track how the research evolves over time.

The research direction was recently refined, so the networking process is currently in its early stages. I have begun primary research by interviewing a potential participant as part of stakeholder engagement.

What I bring to these networks is an interdisciplinary visual research project combining photography, emotional storytelling, visual culture analysis, and audience participation. These networks may act as driving forces by contributing dialogue, collaboration, feedback, and expertise, while the restraining forces my project critically examines include algorithmic beauty standards, commercial platform visibility, self-surveillance, and perfectionist pressures that shape digital self-presentation.

References

Dazed Digital (2025) Dazed’s social media app officially goes global [image]. Available at: https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/68169/1/dazed-social-media-app-officially-goes-global-google-play (Accessed: 21 May 2026).

Figure 1. Hyper-sexualisation campaign image illustrating contemporary visual discourse around sexualisation and media representation (University of Otago, n.d.).

What is this project?

This project explores desaturation as a visual and cultural phenomenon within contemporary digital culture, examining how muted aesthetics, emotional flattening, visual conformity, and reward based systems may shape identity, gender performance, and self expression (Butler, 1999; Berger, 1972; Jung, 1933).

My research question is:

How can desaturation function as a visual mechanism in shaping identity and gender performance?

In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler argues that gender is not fixed but performed through repeated social and visual acts, offering a framework for understanding identity as something shaped and performed (Butler, 1999). In Ways of Seeing, John Berger examines how visual culture historically positions bodies, particularly women, as objects to be viewed and evaluated, linking representation to power and self perception (Berger, 1972). In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung discusses art as a reflection of collective psychological patterns and introduces the persona as a social mask, offering a lens for understanding identity, archetypes, and emotional disconnection in modern culture (Jung, 1933).

Why this project?

I wanted to explore subtle patterns within digital culture that often feel normalised or invisible because they are deeply embedded in everyday, and, online life. Algorithm driven aesthetics do not only influence trends or fashion, but may also shape emotional expression, self perception, individuality, and the ways people learn to present themselves within reward-based systems. I am particularly interested in the contradiction within digital spaces that appear to promote individuality while simultaneously encouraging conformity through visibility systems, engagement patterns, and aesthetic repetition. As someone working between photography, visual culture, branding, and digital media, I want to approach these themes through an interdisciplinary perspective while contributing to wider conversations around authenticity, emotional wellbeing, identity, objectification, and the commercialisations of empowerment online.

How will this project take place?

My methodology combines visual culture research, photography, interviews, surveys, social media observation, audience interaction, and analysis of recurring aesthetic patterns across digital platforms.

The research draws from feminism, psychology, behavioural theory, digital media studies, colour perception, and visual culture theory. Primary research methods may include interviews, surveys, interactive colour association activities, image comparison exercises, audience voting systems, and discussions around emotional responses to different aesthetics and online personas. The project will be conducted ethically through informed consent, anonymity where needed, and sensitive handling of identity related discussions. The research will develop in phases: theoretical research, primary research, experimentation, feedback, visual production, in an iterative cycle.

What if the project is successful?

Figure 2. Media image exploring contemporary ideals of masculinity and gendered visual representation (The Revelation, 2021).

The goal of this project is to create greater awareness around how desaturation and algorithm driven visual culture may influence identity, gender performance, emotional expression, and individuality. If successful, the project could encourage audiences to become more critical of the visual systems and reward structures they engage with daily, while opening conversations around emotional desaturation, objectification, digital conformity, and authenticity. Positive implications may include greater awareness, critical dialogue, and alternative ways of thinking about self expression and representation online. Negative implications may include resistance, disagreement, or the challenge of interpreting complex emotional and identity based experiences in visual form.

By the end of the project, I hope to create an interdisciplinary visual outcome that contributes to wider conversations around identity and emotional wellbeing, while also strengthening my own research practice, creative methodology, and professional network.

Bibliography

Butler, J. (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge. Available at: https://selforganizedseminar.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf (Accessed: 21 May 2026).

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: BBC and Penguin Books. Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/9/9e/Berger_John_Ways_of_Seeing.pdf (Accessed: 21 May 2026).

Jung, C.G. (1933) Modern Man in Search of a Soul. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Available at: https://osanos50.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/modern-man-in-search-of-a-soul-stages-of-life-1.pdf (Accessed: 21 May 2026).

The Revelation (2021) Bring Back Manly Men [Image]. Available at: https://sarevelation.com/5135/entertainment-and-media/bring-back-manly-men/ (Accessed: 21 May 2026).

University of Otago (n.d.) Hyper-sexualisation [Image]. Available at: https://otago.shorthandstories.com/hyper-sexualisation/index.html (Accessed: 21 May 2026).

Figure 1

MA Applied Imagination Project 4

This project began with a simple observation: colour is gradually disappearing from the environments we live in. Urban spaces, offices, and everyday settings are increasingly dominated by neutral, desaturated tones. This shift made me more aware of something I had already understood but had not fully examined; colour is deeply socially and culturally coded, and we constantly use it to communicate, both consciously and unconsciously.

Figure 2

Over time, I began to observe just how common these codes are and how much they shape the way we interpret ourselves and others. Colour becomes a kind of language. It signals identity, values, and belonging, often before any verbal interaction takes place. At the same time, these codes can also become limiting. They can influence how we present ourselves, how we are perceived, and how freely we are able to express who we are. In this sense, colour does not only enable expression, but can also constrain it.

This led me to question what happens when colour is reduced or removed. If colour is one of the ways we externalise parts of ourselves, then its absence raises questions about what becomes less visible, or more difficult to communicate. I became particularly interested in how this connects to internal psychological structures, and how aspects of the self might be suppressed, redirected, or expressed differently under these conditions. This condition can also be understood through the lens of chromophobia, as defined by David Batchelor, where colour is historically marginalised and associated with excess, while neutrality is positioned as controlled and rational (Batchelor, 2000).

Figure 3

The theoretical grounding of the project draws on Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious and archetypes (Jung, 1968). Jung’s framework suggests that we are not purely individual in how we perceive and express ourselves, but are shaped by shared patterns such as the Persona, the Shadow, the Anima/Animus, and the Self. These structures influence what we show, what we hide, and how we relate to others.

In this project, colour serves as a medium through which these archetypal dimensions can be expressed. When colour is present, it can act as a channel for emotion, contradiction, and complexity. When it is reduced, there is a tendency to privilege more controlled and socially acceptable expressions of identity. This raises the question of how the less visible aspects of the self continue to exist and manifest, even when they are not directly expressed. At the same time, we are living in a moment of constant, instantaneous communication. We are more connected than ever, yet this does not necessarily result in deeper understanding. Instead, communication often becomes faster and more surface-level. When expressive tools such as colour are limited, and when internal complexity is less visibly articulated, it becomes easier to misinterpret others and harder to form nuanced connections. This has direct implications for how belonging is experienced.

Another important layer of the project is the recognition that many of these influences are not immediately visible. Cultural codes, environmental conditions, and psychological structures all operate as systems that shape our perception and behaviour without always being consciously acknowledged. These “invisible agents” carry a certain weight, affecting how we feel, think, and interact in everyday life.

Figure 4

The aim of this project is therefore not to remove these systems, but to make them more visible. By investigating how colour functions within both cultural and psychological frameworks, and by exploring what happens in its absence, I aim to create a greater awareness of how much our experiences are shaped by factors we do not always recognise. Ultimately, the project seeks to open up a space for more conscious self-expression and for more empathetic and less reductive ways of understanding others.

Furthermore, it hopes to reintroduce colour into everyday life, both within urban environments and in the ways we choose to present ourselves. Increasing the presence of colour in public spaces and in personal expression has the potential to support a more open and expressive social atmosphere. Ideally, this would contribute to a community in which both the visible colours around us and the more internal, psychological “colours” of individuals are able to emerge more freely, and are met with greater empathy, understanding, and acceptance.

Reference List

Batchelor, D. (2000) Chromophobia. London: Reaktion Books. Available at: https://archive.org/details/chromophobia00batc_0 (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

Jung, C.G. (1968) The archetypes and the collective unconscious. 2nd edn. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Available at: https://ia801406.us.archive.org/9/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.185498/2015.185498.The-Archetypes-And-Collective-Unconscious_text.pdf (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

List of Figures

Figure 1. Vintage Everyday (2014) Wonderful color photographs of street life. Available at: https://www.vintag.es/2014/12/wonderful-color-photographs-of-street.html (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

Figure 2. Sleeman, C. (2021) A little greyer and a bit more rectangular? Available at: https://pec.ac.uk/blog_entries/a-little-greyer/ (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

Figure 3. Scienceverse (2025) The real reason our world is fading to gray. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06EbKlkB-64 (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

Figure 4. McCandless, D., Doughty-White, P. and Wdowski, A. (2010) Colours in cultures. Available at: https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/ (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

Additional Reading

Jain, S. and Nayak, A.V. (2023) ‘Impact of color on human behavior: Case – interior space’, International Journal of Emerging Research in Engineering, Science, and Management, 2(1), pp. 33–37. https://doi.org/10.58482/ijeresm.v2i1.6

Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences (n.d.) Jung on family constellations and the alchemy of colors. Available at: https://jungiancenter.org/jung-on-family-constellations-and-the-alchemy-of-colors/ (Accessed: 20 April 2026).

Lin, C., Mottaghi, S. and Shams, L. (2023) The effects of color and saturation on the enjoyment of real-life images. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10867063/pdf/13423_2023_Article_2357.pdf (Accessed: 20 April 2026).