The last bite

Suits you

Everything, it seems, has a plus and a minus. No sooner have we been exhorted to dump the classic 'white coat' than research suggests otherwise. Widely seen as something of a turn-off, rather old-fashioned and a potential added negative for anxious or phobic patients, the white coat has been in something of a decline in recent years. In its stead has been a plethora of smart designs and a rainbow- array of colours from the delicately pastel to the screamingly bold.

However, researchers in the US have now discovered that wearing a white coat gives the brain a boost. Lab jackets were found to increase brain performance when worn by volunteers who sat a series of mental agility tests and those wearing white coats made half as many mistakes as those who wore their own clothes. On the up-side, if you do lose your job through lack of coloured-clothed, mental agility, the research into 'enclothed cognition' (their term not mine) indicates that donning a suit for an interview could give you an advantage!