Online Shop Exposed: Garbage Dress

If you think Etsy shopping is all handmade knits for hippies, you definitely haven’t checked it out in the past light year. If you had, you’d know it is full of covetable items by local and international independent designers whose handiwork often rivals the runway.

Take Garbage Dress, for instance– the Etsy shop of Zana Bayne, a Brooklyn-based designer slash fashion blogger– whose pieces are part medieval warrior, part space cowboy, part goth fetish, but 100% must-have amazing leather accessories (all priced at a reasonable $85 to $150). If you don’t know her already, go ahead and get acquainted with her harness and shoulderpieces, because you’ll probably be seeing a lot of them on Brooklyn’s finest this year. Get a peep at her work after the jump.

Online Shop Exposed: Fashionology

I periodically go through phases where I’m all about bags or shoes, but right now, it’s all about the jewelry. I’ve actually been slightly manic about getting my hands on beautiful rings lately, so luckily, I’ve found a place where I can get a quick fix: Fashionology, a newly opened e-shop by Rachel Duister through the Netherlands-based blog of the same name. Her pieces are reminiscent of New York-based jewelry designer Pamela Love with her use of crosses, snakes, and animal claws and talons– but at a much lower price point, which I won’t argue with. While she’s always updating the site with new pieces, click to see some of my current must-have items in the e-shop.

Online Shop Exposed: About a Girl

Why is it that Australian labels are always the best? As if I wasn’t jealous enough of their beaches, tans, and accents, now I have to covet their clothes? Cut me a break, mate.

Luckily, I came across a little e-shop called About a Girl that stocks mainly brands from down under– most importantly Mink Pink, one of my favorite new labels whose lookbook is modeled by none other than buzz-worthy/scandal-inducing new model, Zippora Seven.

So here you go, a handpicked list of my Mink Pink must-haves.

Online Shop Exposed: Bitching & Junkfood

Bitching & Junkfood– a freshly-opened online shop, not to mention two totally pleasurable things to do/eat– is definitely the first store I’ve ever heard of that actually promotes shop lifting. So, someone should seriously send the link over to Winona Ryder or Lindsay Lohan, STAT. While B&J haven’t yet explained how you can score some freebies, they’ve forewarned to gear up your kleptomania ready for when the time is right– which basically means, keep the page open at all times hitting refresh every 10 seconds. But even if the temptation of an irrisistable 5-finger discount isn’t enough for you, the store serves up a rare selection handpicked ’80s and ’90s threads plus in-house handmade goods that ‘fashionbitches’ will undoubtedly be trampling over each other for.

Having already done the dirty work, here are some of my own favorite pieces up for grabs. Get ‘em while they’re hot, though, people– because with one-offs, once they’re gone, you’re shit out of luck.

Online Shop Exposed: Need Supply Co.

The people behind naming this store were pretty genius, because basically, the stuff in this shop is stuff that you need. And they supply it, of course. Hence, Need Supply Co. It pretty sums up the way I feel about most of my clothing/accessories/shoe purchases– as utter necessities that outweigh the importance of food/water/shelter. I’m just glad I’m not the only one with out-of-wack priorities.

What started out as just a shop for vintage Levi’s, the store then shifted gears to providing some of the best denim and alternative street wear brands on the market. Now they stock the labels Mink Pink, Insight, CTRL, Cheap Monday, Perks and Mini, Wood Wood, and Rojas, accessories lines Alex & Chloe, Garnett, and Tatty Devine, and shoe brands Jeffrey Campbell, Dolce Vita, and Keep– just to name a few. And since their retail shop operates out of Richmond, Virginia (where I don’t plan to be anytime soon), I’m glad I can just point and click at what I want with my highly-efficient index finger.

I’ve already done you the favor of highlighting the goodies that you NEED.