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The internet! The greatest invention ever? If you are a shopping maven, for sure! But at the same time, the Internet can sometimes be just too big to find exactly what you want to wear. Yes there are the typical flash sale sites like Gilt or RueLaLa. Or the standard online retailers like Shopbop, Net-A-Porter, or Piperlime. We aren’t going to talk about those though.

Don’t get me wrong, they are great sites. I just find them so overstuffed with subscribers that it’s hard to get something I want there in the size or the color I covet. That said, I still hit them up for holiday gift ideas, but I like to think bigger when it comes to adding that pop of color I need.

Online Garage Sales

Let’s put it this way: if you tend to fall into one of two extremes when it comes to sizing (small feet or giant feet for example), eBay is a really good place for you. You can find shoes, bags, and more. These are often used or vintage but for a great price. Do you have to be wary of knock offs? Yes. Can you return things? Not usually. But I know most of the people my age wearing Louboutins are getting them used with a few scratches on the soles via eBay.

Online Consignment Stores

On the other hand, if you do want to pay a little extra to make sure your Chanel is legit, try The Real Real. This online consignment shop inspects all their items before putting them up for sale. They have great curators, a handbag sale every week, and so. many. shoes. WARNING! This is a dangerous website. No, seriously—I have had to unsubscribe from their email list because I’ve found myself coming up with reasons why I absolutely needed to buy a red carpet Alexander McQueen gown. That said, if you just check it out every once and a while, you can get really good deals (especially on shoes)! (I might have a shoe problem. Obviously, I have no idea what you’re talking about.)

Polyvore

Confession: I’m still not 100% how to use Polyvore. It’s a very powerful tool that allows bloggers/fashionistas/future Martha Stewarts to make collages out of their favorite items. But the best part is that you can click on the items on someone’s collage and it takes you to the site where you can buy it! How awesome! Polyvore can also be used to explore “red trenchcoats” or “pointy toes navy heels” and help you, as a consumer, find different sites to purchase these items. I’ve definitely used Polyvore to help me with DIY Carmen San Diego and Oswin Oswald costumes for next year.

Go Overseas

Sometimes the best way to get great deals is to go overseas! If you don’t know where to start, check out sites like Dorothy Perkins (a UK retailer à la H&M or Topshop) and Yoox.com (an Italian mail-order company). Some like Dorothy have cute, inexpensive dresses, sweaters etc. I like them because their palette and sizing generally is complimentary with my figure. Yoox.com is a really confusing online shopping black hole. No seriously, I had to go actually look up “how to navigate Yoox” while writing this because there is just so much stuff on there. But it has everything and at the best prices. For example, right now they have some $4,000 Balmain dresses and some discounted Alexander McQueen gowns (that I totally need at age 26, right? ) Since they are an Italian company, they have direct relationships with those showrooms, so this is a good bet if you like Dolce & Gabbana.

The con is that you have to then pay to ship your stuff from god-knows-where and it’s a lot of money to return things. But if you pull together 2-4 friends and put in a big order, you can split the shipping.

Another con is that some deals are actually too good to be true. If you find yourself buying an item for a ridiculous discount, take a look around the site. Is there a customer service number? Call it. Make sure it’s a real person. There are tons of web scammers out there who build legit enough looking shopping sites, take your money, and never ship your goods.

Rent It!

If you always need to be up-to-date or if you feel like you keep getting invited to special occasion after special occasion, consider renting your pieces. If I want a work-appropriate Tory Burch bag for spring, I can rent it for $75/month from Bag Borrow Steal or if I have to work or attend a black tie event, I can rent an evening gown from Rent the Runway. It’s pretty cool because usually they send one size up or down so you don’t order the wrong size and find out it doesn’t fit the day before. The bad news is that I find a lot of their styles a little prom-y, overly sexy, or all kind of the same.

Facebook

Do you have a seriously fashionable friend? Or a friend of friend? This isn’t exactly “online,” but I know some serious fashionistas who clean out their closet every 4-6 months with an online garage sale. For example, one girl at my university would sell designer stuff at a big discount just to always be in season. She needed to excise the old trends to get the new ones and would do so by selling off designer items for $40-100. Some were barely used, but only the lucky few people who wore her size could take part.

Whether you’re updating your own wardrobe, hunting down the perfect piece, or fulfilling the addictions of your shopaholic boss, these are all very, very dangerous places… but also the best places to get styles online! (I’m serious about The Real Real… No, I can’t afford you, Jimmy Choo’s, but you are 50% off!)

Just be sure to step away from the computer for a bit before clicking “Submit Order.”

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Every summer, hundreds take to the parks and beaches, ditch their shoes, wiggle their toes in the grass and the sand—and with every step, I cringe.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Just in case you were raised by wolves, allow me to educate you: you need to wear your goddamn shoes. You should not run about willy-nilly in public places like beaches, forests, or parks without wearing some protection! I say this from personal experiencing the perils of ignoring common sense and my mother’s advice (but more on that later).

Cuts, Stings, Bites

There is a whole world of things that typically pass beneath your soles with no event: bent nails, flattened snails, and even those little pokey balls of death. But without shoes, the ick has no sympathy for your feet.

On the beach, sea glass is lovely stuff—smooth, pastel, beautiful. But do you know how it got that way? By rolling around, broken, in the water or through the sand for quite some time. And when you’re just walking innocently along the waterline, that newly donated (read: littered) glass will take no mercy on your unshod feet. Since water shoes are some of the dorkiest things to hit department stores since fanny packs, I typically go with some ol’ fashioned flip flops. They protect my feet from the bad stuff, while still allowing me to enjoy the water and sand.

Walking on soil in forests or fields can also expose you to a much livelier problem: hookworms. If you step on hookworm larvae, they can enter your body through your skin, causing rashes, allergic reactions, and infections. The hookworms will take up shop in your intestine, and requires some seriously nasty meds to flush out. What were you thinking, taking off your hiking boots like that?!

Last but not least, bees reign supreme as that minor annoyance that will completely ruin your picnic (and discomfort you for the next two weeks). Even with the generous assumption that you have been blessed without a bee allergy, tromping across a grassy field has never inspired as much regret as that moment when bee stinger meets squishy inter-toe flesh. If only you had slipped on some tennis shoes…

Broken Bones

So what makes me so passionate about pedal protection? Running around barefoot landed me with four broken bones.

Once upon a time, I attended a lovely beginning-of-summer BBQ, pumped to catch some rays and eat some burgers. Obviously, I decked myself in the quintessential California summer uniform: jean shorts, a tank top, and my comfiest sandals. After our second round of gooey, semi-charcoal’d cheeseburgers with a side of sour-cream-and-onion Lays, one of my compatriots whipped out a disc and challenged us all to a cut-throat game of Ultimate Frisbee.

Game on!

Of course, my similarly shod friends and I chucked off our sandals and commandeered the largest patch of grass we could: running, laughing, overthrowing the Frisbee.

My team—currently in the lead—was just about to thump our opponents with yet another landmark goal, when a defenseman ran up to block my catch. I turned, trying to thwart his attempt, and three of my toes twisted in the grass and folded under my foot. As my weight shifted onto my toes, they broke, and I fell to the ground. Instinctively, I brought up my forearm to protect myself—but instead of my arm breaking my fall, my fall broke my wrist.

It took all of my summer break for my wrist to heal, overlapping with a vacation to New York (in which I schlepped around in a bootie and sling and had to explain the game of Ultimate Frisbee to every single New Yorker in town) and my university orientation days (when I broke down in tears because I couldn’t write all the information being thrown at me).

So listen up, kids. You do not want to deal with all that. Put on your damn shoes.

UE

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