Please help me with my shopping addiction!

First off I did a search in the forums and came up with nothing.

We all know the search function in-world is pretty much garbage especially with the use of bots. When I try to go on a shopping spree I run into two problems. Clothing and shoes that are just BLAH, not very well made in the least. Or I end up in a store where I can't find the things they used in their keywords section. Ugh!

I've tried starting from the bottom and work my way up but that still doesn't work.

So I'm asking everyone here what are your favorite stores and designers. I'm no fashionista so I need some help....lol.

Blaze is my #1 favorite - be prepared to drop a few bucks.

I have several "favorites" but I'm not inworld and I'm drawing a blank.

Tiasha, there's a Forum shopping trip planned for Sunday, inworld. I think it's at 12 noon SLT. I will get you the details...

Edelweiss

Just about everything in LicoLico

Bare@Rose

Katat0nik

Curious Kitties

Passionate Neko Desires

Canimal

=^-^=

I started at fashion blogs, and worked my way down from there.

I use http://www.second-man.com

But you could try:
http://www.secondstyle.com
http://slfashionaddict.blogspot.com/
and
http://sherpadavies.blogspot.com/

Plus the fashion blogs tend to have links to most of the major designers.

also I would suggest joining a few freebie groups, you get notices for freebies from lots of designers, you can pick up a freebie, take it home, try it on and decide if you like the designer's work...if you do make a note and within a week or two you will probably have a nice list of stores you like

hmm my list...

for hair, I like Gurl6...it's huge and laggy (for me, everything is laggy) but they usually have some nice specials and I've been pretty happy with everything I've gotten there

for shoes, I always liked Virtual Impressions. Now that sculpty shoes are becoming popular tho, I have to say my new favorite is Tesla.

for clothes...well I don't buy clothes so I dunno

oh yes, and there is always this popular little blog....

http://virtual-freebies.blogspot.com

*bump*

I personally wouldn't bother with search but just browse through the fashion blogs. You don't have to look for specific things you like, but just look at each review and if there's something you like about it (even if it's not something you'd specifically buy) make a note of the store and chances are high their other outfits will appeal as well and you'll find something worth buying.

Inworld you can join Fashion Consolidated when you're bored, look through the notice history and look at the offerings. Or stay in the group if you can cope with all the notices every few minutes .

I personally hate it when someone "Inspect"s something I'm wearing just to get the name and creator and run off to buy the same thing I'm wearing, but it can be a good way to find stores as well and you can do it while being social, or even while shopping .

Feed aggregator for a bunch of SL fashion blogs:

http://fashionplanet.worldofsl.com/

also you can check this thread
/327/ac/274749/1.html

It is a bunch of sellers helping one another learn better ways to market and such
some really good designers in there, never know, you might find the gem you have been looking for

Dutch Touch
SLink
Maitreya
Armidi
Shiny Things

are among the places I check out regularly. However there are lots of places where a single item might stand out among blander fare and so the blogs are probably a good place to start. Fortunately, I have my own personal fashion consultant

Never had any luck with freebies. While I, like most of us, can't resist picking through designer's freebie offerings, I've never found a clothing item that I ended up wearing (or, for that matter, moved me to look into the designer's other offerings).

Why not just make your own clothes? OK, I'm an off size avatar 4'8" in world and about 125-130lb with big hands and feet, but clothes are not that tricky to make, and no they won't look like what is in the stores, but they may look and work better for you.

You can get the netting for texture clothes any number of places. Make a two layer drawing in any graphics software (GIMP is freeware and it's what I use.) Paste the netting into the top layer and then paint, cut, and paste to make shirts, skirts, pants and shoes.

Prim clothes are more of a challenge and I don't make them in the traditional way, but start thinking hollowed cilendars and torri and you'll be on the right track. Most prim dresses need a leotard or dress pants/top or body suit undeneath, and I use rigid prims more often than flexible ones.

The prim skirts you see for sale are a bunch of little flexible prim flags attached to tori, cilendar or ring hooop that acts as a belt or waistband. Working with a single or composit tube is a lot faster and easier and also gives a possiblity for different silhouettes.

Really depends on the style you want. Im a Neko half the time and a Vampire half the time so places like Blaze who have lovely clothes just dont look right on my Avitar. so I end up at places like Gothikatz or Goth1co or one of the Various Neko / punk malls .

I like to look at SLX or Onrez, especialy thier "new" items lists which shows stuff uploaded in the last 12 hours. but I dont buy there, like to write down the store name and visit in world to shop.

Actualy thats one of my pet peeves about SLX, vendors who don't put thier proper store names in there. .. or vendors who dont have their stores in their picks or use alts to list things there. Its Great to say on SLX "Come Visit RDF Fashions! in world" but when your listed as "Really Damn Fine Fashions" in Seach that just does not help at all!

Redgrave
Nicky Ree
Sn@tch
Indyra's Originals
Innovations
Jollie Femme
enkythings
Naughty Designs
Dark Eden
Graves

That's should keep you going for now. Is there anything you are wanting? A certian style? Cosplay? Langerie that does not look trashy? Latex and Leather? Skirts and dresses that actually cover your butt? Shoes? Hair? All of the above?

It would probably help the ladies here if you could give them an idea of your personal style, so they could make appropriate recommendations. Do you like elegant and classy, or slutty and punky? Ethnic? Boho? Neko? Gothic? Many stores are quite specialist, as some of the posters here have indicated, and it would help them to narrow things down for you if you could give them an idea of your tastes, perhaps?

/me knows very little about buying women's clothes, save the flirty little punky skirts at Sn@tch that look great with his slutty schoolgirl outfit

Or just do a search on clothes/hair/fashion/etc here in the forums. There's usually a thread a week.

Blaze
Armidi
ETD
Maitreya
Shiny Things
Little Rebel
Marly's
VitaminCi
International House of Style
Nikki Ree
Enkythings
Baby Monkey

Maureen - Yes I would love the details on that

Jerboa n Kitty - I'm going to have to break out my pen and paper for this cause running sl at the same time as ANYTHING else is not going to happen on my crappy computer

Ralektra - oh yes the freebie groups...I forgot about that one

Rha - I followed that thread for a while in the very beginning...messed around and didn't check for a couple of days and whoa! I do remember something about a list of stores people wanted reviewed. If anybody has it I would love to see some of them.

Iyoba- I've tried my hand at making clothes and gave up the first night...I had a bad headache after that...lol

Skell & Jacinda - My style is VERY open...Asking everyone else what their favorites are might have me in a store I would have never thought to go to myself...so any suggestion is a good one

Kyllie - As far as slx goes it seems that a lot of the best designers don't even sell clothing or shoes there. I had to submit a ticket with OnRez and the way it was handled I refuse to shop through their site.

Thanks everybody for all your suggestions!

Nona Hedges is the first one that comes to my mind. She makes pretty, lacy, sexy things. Tehre are others, but I need to log in to find them.

a few of my faves:

Novacane (sp?)
Detour
Casa del Shai
French Haute Coutour

Novacane and Detour don't have many clothing items, but the ones that are there are great! Especially Detour's Mistress Boots - oo la la!

Search for clothing on OnRez and SLX that way no tping and crashing.. and its WAY faster. Ya can find a desinger ya like and either buy online or tp to thier inworld store both OnRez and SLX have pretty good searchs

Well this is an obvious invitation to let one plug away - so.... may i direct you to Talon Faire my very own little store? See my siggy for slurl and my blog Good luck shopping.

Hmm- and here I thought it was hard work - go figure.

Soraya Shan makes the most gorgeous gowns!

Maybe it's too obvious to mention, but try browsing the New Products - Clothing & Accessories section of these forums. You can get a good idea of the styles & designs of regular posters... though there are many great designers that never post there. I browse them daily... even if I don't like a particular offering, it gives me an enough of an idea of their workmanship and styles to decide if I want to tp to their store and investigate further.

If you are unfamiliar with the quality of someone's work, I'd recommend trying their freebies or starting with an inexpensive item that you like just to test it out before spending a bundle of money right away. Sometimes things can look great in the pics, and not so great in actuality.

I may not be as knowledgable as some here with the fashion world, but some of my favorites are...

Solange - specifically for silks and lingerie, but really anything she makes is great.

Bare Rose - for fantasy or gothic wear at super reasonable prices (and its transferable)

EXXESS - if you don't mind your ARC going off the meter... great quality and great customer service for alterations. I think the design could be labeled as fantasy or fetish wear (and very primmy).

Apple May and Nyte & Day are both good quality for casual or club wear

Dark Eden - for good quality fetish wear at reasonable prices

DE Designs - good quality and a range of styles from fantasy to casual

Goth1co - I have a couple of fabulous gothic style gowns from there.

Hugo Designs - has great latex

SF Designs, Pixel Dolls & Simone - offer good quality in a range of styles

These are just a few names that came up with multiple listings in my inventory and that is not to say that there aren't other designers with comparable workmanship, I just haven't discovered them yet