I own two frill tops that get compared every single time I try to get rid of either one, and neither comparison ever settles anything. The first is a cotton poplin one with a single ruffle down the placket, the kind of frill that looks like it was an afterthought on a normal button up shirt. The second is a viscose thing with frills stacked at the collar and both cuffs, enough ruffle that my brother took one look and asked if I was going to a costume party. Different garments, same drawer, constant argument in my own head about which one actually earns its spot.
The poplin one wins on almost every practical measure. It survived a full workday, a bike commute, and one spilled oat milk latte that came off the fabric without a trace, which is the only test I actually trust.
The frill on that one sits close enough to the placket that it never catches on a bag strap or a car door, and I’ve caught it on both plenty of times without it fraying at the edge, which tells me somebody actually finished that seam properly instead of just serging it and hoping.
The viscose one is a gamble and I’ll say that outright. It looks incredible under a blazer for exactly one type of night out and looks like I raided a costume box for absolutely everything else. I’ve worn it four times in two years. Every one of those four times somebody complimented it, and every other day it sat in the drawer being useless.
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That’s not a normal item, that’s an occasion piece pretending to be a top, and I think it’s worth owning exactly one of those and stopping there.
The thing nobody warns you about is what goes underneath. A frill top with any kind of collar detail shows a bra strap the second you move, and I spent a stupid amount of time figuring out which bras disappear under mine before I gave up and just started wearing a thin tank underneath both tops, plain, no lace, nothing that competes with a ruffle already doing a lot of the visual work. My brother’s take, unsolicited, was that I’d overthought a shirt. He’s not wrong, but he also doesn’t own anything with a seam finish I’d trust past one wash, so I don’t take fashion notes from him.
What keeps me going back to the poplin one specifically, past newer options that show up every season, is that it does the job without asking anything of me. The viscose one I keep for the four nights a year it’s actually right. Neither one is replacing the other, and at this point I’ve stopped expecting them to.
