Women 'dress to impress' as they approach most fertile period

[Angel]

WOMEN "dress to impress" when they are at their most fertile, according to new research.

A study of 30 university students in the United States found that as they approached ovulation, they were likely to wear trendier clothes, flash more flesh, ditch trousers in favour of skirts and don eye-catching jewellery.

The findings go against the conventional wisdom that humans - unlike many animals which release powerful scents or change the colour of their skin when they are ready to mate - hide all signs of the moment they release an egg.

"Near ovulation, women dress to impress and the closer women come to ovulation, the more attention they appear to pay to their appearance," said the study's leader, Martie Haselton, at the University of California.

The women, who did not know what the study was about and were all in stable relationships, were photographed in their least fertile and most fertile phases.

Then a group of 42 other people - just over half women - were asked to look at the pairs of pictures and judge in which one the woman was trying to look more attractive.

The fertile-phase photos were chosen 60 per cent of the time, which the team said was "well beyond random chance".