The Budget Fashionista

A fashion utopia is emerging, one that offers several fashion options for curvy fashionistas, none of which involve polyester tent dresses. This guide gives you the rules to follow and a list of the stores at which to shop to enhance your voluptuous, fashionable self. Take that, Kate Moss!

The era of flower-printed muumuus is long gone. The fashion caste system that separates people into “those who can” (skinny and rich) and “those who can’t” (everyone else), a system created by snobby designers and power-hungry fashion editors (who, by the way, are often plus-size themselves), is crumbling. A fashion utopia is emerging, one that offers several fashion options for curvy fashionistas, none of which involve polyester tent dresses. This guide gives you the rules to follow and a list of …

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Dear Budget Fashionista: Hi! I’ve just started getting into “fashion” hose and tights in order to liven up my boring lawyer wardrobe. However, I have a few problems. First, I am 5’3” and weight in at about 185, so it’s hard to find hose in this size. Second, I live in a pretty un-trendy town, and I was wondering if you could suggest some online retailers for this type of thing? Target.com Wal-Mart

Try these online stores for fashionable plus size hosiery:

Torrid.com—Although they’re fashion skews more towards the whole skater chick look, this online and mall based store has a solid selection of fashion forward, plus size legwear—from fishnets to opaque tights.

Lane Bryant.com- Good old LB has a large selection of hosiery for plus size women, including the Spanx brand. Plus you can often find coupon codes for free shipping or discounts online.

Hanes Online—Wade through the poor site design, to find an amazing selection of hoisery—both fashion and regular for a great price.

Also try the dancewear companies like Danskin and Capezio which at times carry fashionable plus size tights.  Also take a quick look in your local Wal-Mart and Target, both of which carry fashion tights in plus sizes.

Now as far as telling if a site is reputable or not, do a google search on the site and what type of information comes up. You can also check out the sites like shopzilla and shopping.com which often post customer reviews of various ecommerce sites.

Hippy boho chic seems to be Kate Hudson’s signature look most days (which, quite frankly, doesn’t look too hard to do on the cheap), but when she brings her style A game—like this sophisticated sheath dress in refreshing summer white—we suddenly want to be her. (Well, we usually want to be her, but we digress . . . ). The thing we love most? Making a basic dress interesting with eclectic accessories. She makes it look easy to look this …

What: Angela slips into the new Totally Slimming Jeans from Signature by Levi Strauss & Co.™, which will be available at Wal-Mart stores nationwide starting this August, for under $20 a pair. The Lowdown: Here’s the deal—the traditional five-pocket style Totally Slimming Jeans were designed to address women’s typical problem areas—stomach, thighs, rear end—using a high-stretch fabric (more than the typical 1%) and including a built-in tummy control panel. I must admit, the pair I received was just a wee …