State of the Closet: Tops

Thinking yesterday about focusing on pieces that make you feel great and that you love made me want to take a closer look at the Great Top Situation of 2013.  One thing I noticed as I was going through my tops, other than the fact that there were more of them than I expected, is how many times I was surprised I still had something.  Things I bought years ago and had been shoved to the back of my closet or that were in worse condition than I remember.  My gut feeling is that the pool of tops I actually wear is much, much smaller than 62 (though I could definitely be wrong on that).

In an ideal world, (one in which I have a professional closet consultant), I would be able to track how often I wore each item of clothing.  I even thought about adding that metric as I was logging data but

a) I would have just been guessing and 

b) despite my jokes, I actually do have a life (no really!) , and I don't really feel like keeping track of what I wear on a daily basis.  

Time spent logging items into a spreadsheet is time I could spend drinking giant beers at The Standard.  

Plus, then I'd have to control for things like time of year etc.  Thankfully, we have things called "proxy measures" for things we can't measure exactly.  I decided to treat my ratings system as a proxy measure for how often I wear something.  It makes sense.  The better I feel in something, the more likely I am to wear it on a regular basis. (The exception of course is special occasion items, like my wedding dress.  Felt great in it, but only planning on wearing it once).

Here are the results (for 62 tops):

The good news? There was nothing I absolutely hated.  The bad news?  Nearly half of my tops fell into the "Like, but Don't Love" category or below.  I was a little surprised (pleasantly) at how many "staples" I'd collected and that I hadn't completely failed in buying things that made me feel great.