Typical situation after a long shopping day: the jeans that made you a body in the store seem like a potato bag when you put them at home.Who has no nailed in the mind that impressive suit for your graduation that was so good for you in the tester and so bad when you saw it with natural light, hours before the ceremony?It is no accident: the game of lights, the inclination of the glass, the dimensions of the cabin, the shades of the walls, the music ... everything influences so that the mirror of the tester shows the best parts of your body while hiding the bad.This is how brands want you to see yourself.And works.

The Spanish wanted to check it first -hand.The challenge is simple: go to ten stores with basic clothing - white braces and jeans - and immortalize in a photo how the body of a person changes according to a tester or another.This reporter will be responsible for demonstrating how mirrors deceive.

Ascending the endless stairs on the mouth of Metro and I appear in the middle of Gran Vía Madrid, the epicenter of purchases in the capital.But I am only interested in one thing: the testers, those mysterious rooms in which I can seem from a character of the computer game the sims to a coconut with wig.

Results: ten stores, ten photos, plus one in my house to compare.In the end I will present my conclusions.If they slide the image to one side and another can see the comparison between the photo I took in my house and the one I took in each tester.

Zara

Two huge mirrors to the sides, chill out music and several indirect lights of tungsten whose warmth contrasts with the glacier gray of the furniture.The objective is clear: soften my features as much as possible.

Primark

A great tester with saturated oranges and a short mirror to the side.In front, a second glass as support, smaller and inclined.The hardness of the lights almost completely hides my features: some are mired in the dark and others burned by the luminosity.

H&M

All cabin walls are lined with mirrors.A white zenith light is enough to illuminate the tester.The soft contrasts that are created mark each curve and each bone that stands out.

The English Court

One of the worst: the rectangular plant, the dirty brown color of the looks and the yellow and hard light that have placed just over my head creates the most bizarre and unincomcious shadows possible.The elevator music that sounds in the room either does it help.

Mango

The electronic melody that floods the store makes me the tester with the loaded batteries.The large size of the room, the softness of the lights and their two huge mirrors to the sides get me better than in most.I'm not the same.

Michael Kors

The diaphanous space combines the gelidity of its walls with the roasted tones of its furniture: a brown zebra sofa and a coffee table.Weak light and ambient music deviate the attention of my defects and concentrate it on my qualities.

Chalcedony

Locking into this tester is the worst nightmare of a claustrophobic, but it works.The cabin in the form of a tube, culminated with a narrow and elongated mirror makes me look visually taller and thinner than usual.

Brandy Melville

This store undoubtedly remains with the most strange light game of my experiment.This lighting hides "casually".

Diesel

The reduced size of the tester and the yellow marking of the bulbs made me doubt before putting myself in front of their mirror.But everything is measured with absolute precision.Once in position, everything works: there are no hard shadows and unifies the tone of my skin.

Stradivarius

The iconic store of the store, cheerful music and the contrast between cold and warm shades manage to get the best out of me.The light, although very strong, is strategically arranged in such a way that I seem to wear makeup, even with a washed face.

Conclusions

The differences between each tester are abysmal. Los hay que ocultan mis clavículas, como el de Zara, mientras que otros las potencian, como el de H&M.Some, such as Primark, hide much of my features, and others, such as Brandy Melville, expose them and give them all the prominence.In addition, my skin has gone through all the tones in the purest pantone style.

But the tricks of the marketing magnates have been exposed: the tester in which you will have that silhouette that society considers ‘ideal’ is a diaphanous cabin with great and narrow mirrors.The best type of lighting is the indirect, warm light but without falling into the tungsten and soft so as not to create hard shadows.

Nor should we forget the intangible elements that complete the experience of buying clothes: a subtle but pleasant setter and musical thread can convert an ordinary act into a small version of the Madrid Cibeles catwalk.

There are as many testers as tastes: some will work better than the Snapchat dog ears filter to improve a person, while others will make any princess into a frog.An advice?The clothes are tested at home and returns the next day.

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