There are many ways you can rate an outfit. Is it appropriate, interesting and current? It is comfortable and practical? Is it traditionally flattering, or just flattering enough? Does it create positive body image? Does it highlight your best features? Is it suited to your lifestyle? Does it align with your style goals and aspirations? Does it garner compliments from others? Does your significant other like it? Do you feel confident and attractive wearing it?

It’s fun to think about these questions, and to analyze an outfit based on the ones that are most important to you. But there are also ways to judge an outfit that are much less analytical.

I find that one of these is the amount I think about my outfit during the day. I obviously put a good deal of thought into my outfit in the morning when I’m getting ready, because a good outfit will make me feel fabulous and give me a confident start to the day. After that, the best outfits blend into my day and I hardly think about them at all. Much later I might catch a glimpse of my outfit in a mirror, and I love it all over again. But aside from that my outfit is forgotten.

I think this is a good test of an outfit. An outfit that makes you feel confident and attractive, and then gets out of the way, is a great outfit. It means the outfit was comfortable, unfussy, stayed put, and ticked all the right aesthetic boxes. It didn’t have any niggles or sources of insecurity. It is an empowering outfit.

Does this sound familiar? Do you have other interesting ways that you assess your outfits?