The Monthly Ranking, November

The Monthly Ranking collects the ballots of the month into one ranking. In October readers voted on trends: barn jackets, brooches, chartreuse. November's stories are about money and investment: cashmere or merino, the leather jacket for one season or for ten, the 80s blazer or the gold. These are the ballots that tell us most about how readers shop.

How to read this page

Each ballot shows both choices, the share each has and the number of votes. The count is live: it updates with every vote cast anywhere on the site.

• 70 percent or more on one side: a verdict.
• Close to 50 percent: a split, a question that divides readers.
• Few votes: still open. Vote and move it.

Why these ballots matter

Price questions are where taste and budget meet. Stitch Fix built its styling business on a simple game: customers rate single pieces with a thumbs up or down, and the service collected around 200 million ratings that way.1 Our ballots ask a harder question, because each one puts a price next to a choice. When readers choose the cheaper merino over cashmere, or the ten-year leather jacket over the light one, they tell us what they consider worth paying for.

A vote with a price next to it says more than a like.

Compare with our verdicts

In the November stories we said: merino under a jacket, cashmere alone; capes are chic as a second coat; gorpcore one piece at a time; the leather jacket is an investment only if it is plain, brown or black and fits at the shoulder. Below you see whether readers agree.

What we do with the result

Splits get a deeper story in December. Clear verdicts go into The Friday Edit. And all of it feeds STYLERZ, the fashion app we are building from what readers choose.

Three ballots to watch

• Merino or cashmere. If readers split close to the middle, the case for one great cashmere knit and merino for the rest, our verdict in story sixteen, is the right advice for most wardrobes.
• The ten-year jacket. A clear vote for the expensive leather jacket would tell us readers buy for the long run, which shapes every Under / Over story we write.
• One expensive piece or several cheaper ones. The ballot at the end of this page asks it directly, and it is the question STYLERZ most needs answered.

Your vote is anonymous

We count choices, not people. One vote per ballot per browser.