This past weekend was an emotional roller coaster. After weeks of nearly freezing every time you stepped outside, the temperatures slowly rose to a balmy 55 degrees. The sidewalks were free of snow. People shed their puffer coats. And, I even saw one brave soul wearing a dress without tights. Then, just as we thought spring might be around the corner, Monday came.
It looks like Punxsutany Phil is having the last laugh (on a side note, this system seems really rigged. I mean, out of 117 winters, he's only not seen his shadow 17 times.) Since we are not shaking winter any time soon, I thought it would be a good time to finish cataloguing my sweaters.
This was actually really easy because it turns out I only own 10 of them. (Note: I excluded cardigans, a vest, and my one short-sleeve cashmere sweater). As with my jeans and pants, the average rating was actually pretty high (3.9 out of 5). Which, again, confirms that I'm getting rid of items that I don't like/don't wear. Though, sometimes I think how I rate an item depends on how hungry/tired/cranky I am at the moment . . .
And, if you're analyzing your closet, why not make a perceptual map of your sweaters? Though a little time intensive, this was actually pretty helpful to see if my sweaters were united by any common trends. (Note: if you're looking for a handy template for creating perceptual maps in excel, I like this site)
For this graph, the horizontal line corresponds to style (chunky vs. thin). The vertical line corresponds to season (heavier sweaters that can only be worn in the winter to more versatile sweaters that can be worn across seasons or into spring).* The size of the circles roughly correlates to my rating, plus how frequently I wear them. And, finally, I tried to match the color of the circle to the color of the item.
Obviously this type of graph is highly subjective. Also, because I created this manually, I'd probably only use this for small data sets. That said, it is a useful way to depict information. As you can see, most of my sweaters skew on the thick/chunky side and are heavily concentrated in the winter/late fall category. (Maybe we can call that the polar vortex effect . . . when its ungodly cold outside, all you want is a big sweater, a hot toddy, and the latest episode of Downton Abbey.) I don't tend to have a lot of bright sweaters. Again, I think that makes sense. In the winter, I tend to wear darker hues and a lot more neutrals because they're more versatile.
What's the take away from this? Should I be buying more sweaters? Well, it looks like I have a lot more pants than sweaters (ok, that is definitely true). Which means that if my original goal was to have a tops to bottoms ration of 3:1, I'm not on the right track. I think this probably impacts some of the versatility of my closet (it also explains why I feel like I'm wearing the same rotation of sweaters all the time . . . 'cause I am). That said, there are a couple of other factors to consider. First, I wear things besides sweaters during the winter. Also, this weather has been unusually cold, which means it might not make sense for me to invest in more winter wear this year.
If I were to buy more sweaters, it would probably make sense for me to purchase more lightweight sweaters that I could either dress up (one thing you don't see here is how casual most of mine are) or wear into spring. And, of course cashmere. Because one cannot have too many cashmere sweaters.
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P.S. want more cubicle catwalk? Follow me on twitter @cubicle_catwalk, on Pinterest (I also contribute to the Corporate Fashionasta style board), or on Instagram @MrsVonC.
Note: Obviously, there's a correlation between how thick or thin a sweater is and when it can be worn. Though, that doesn't always hold as I learned when I tried to wear a thin cashmere sweater on a spring day.
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