Why it pays to wear expensive clothes

THERE’S a simple — but expensive — trick you can use to give you an edge in your next job interview. You’ll also get paid more.

THEY say the clothes maketh the man. They should say the clothes maketh the job interview. A new study in the Journal of Business Research has revealed a depressing truth you probably already suspected.

Wearing expensive luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci will give you an edge in job interviews, and may even impact how much you get paid.

In the study, 150 students at a large university in Korea were divided into three groups to watch a ‘job interview’ between a female job applicant applying for an internship with a movie agency.

Three versions of the same interview were created — one in which the woman wore a white polo shirt with a Louis Vuitton logo, one in which she wore a ‘non-luxury’ H&M shirt, and one in which she wore a plain white polo.

Respondents were then asked to evaluate how suitable they thought the applicant was for the job, how much they thought she should be paid, and their views on her ‘status’.

“Conspicuous consumption (displaying a luxury brand) brought the wearer of the luxury brand preferential treatment,” the authors wrote.

“The job applicant wearing the luxury brand received two forms of financial benefit. First, he or she was more likely to get hired for the job (higher suitability score). Second, once hired, he or she would receive a higher salary.”

Of the respondents, 15.6 per cent thought the woman wearing the Louis Vuitton shirt should be paid more than 13,000 won ($15.50) an hour, compared with only 2.4 per cent for the H&M shirt, and zero per cent for the plain shirt.

In a separate experiment, a group of fundraisers approached students for donations to charity wearing one of the three shirts. They found that fundraisers wearing the Louis Vuitton shirt received higher donations.

More than half (53 per cent) of donors to the luxury brand wearer donated more than 1000 won ($1.20), compared with 33 per cent for the H&M wearer and just 22 per cent for the plain shirt.

“This research suggests that displaying a luxury item can be a socially learned strategy to induce beneficial treatment from others,” the authors wrote. “The product by itself, however, does not elevate its owner’s status.

“The mind of the observer plays a large role in determining the status of the other person. So when someone purchases a product to show off his or her status, he or she is actually purchasing a product to display physical, mental, and moral superiority to the comparison group.”

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Originally published as Why it pays to wear expensive clothes