Update: If you visit shopstyle.com from outside the U.S, you may be taken to an international site — which in the  case of the Canadian site has far fewer results. To access the U,S. site, visit this URL (and bookmark it). You’ll be taken to the. women’s clothes section, but from there you can navigate to the rest of the U.S. search engine.

This is the true story of a woman and a website: ShopStyle. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t click that link. But if you are one of the people who have asked me about the super-ultra-amazing shopping search engine I can’t stop using, here is our tale.

Recently, a colleague complimented me on my interesting legwear. Here’s what I had on the other day: ivory herringbone tights layered on top of hot pink tights.

 

My hosiery obsession is a product of ShopStyle. At first glance, it looks like any shopping site:

Naturally, I used it to shop for red boots. And found more than 2,000 pairs. This is where it pays to be a size 11 — simply because it takes so many options off the table, and makes the selection manageable. Even more so if I eliminate anything with a serious heel.

I can narrow by price, so that I’m not tempted by stratospherically expensive options.

I can just look at the latest additions, in case — hypothetically speaking — I did the same search last week.

By now, I know I’m going to do this search yet again next week, so I’ll save all these search parameters to my permanent collection of search filters.

Now I have nothing to do but wait for a new batch of red boots to arrive.ShopStyle has that scenario covered in a bunch of ways. One of my favorites is to look at “my brands”, which shows me the latest items from stores and designers I’ve favorited. If you are shopping for a bro you can visit https://babeappeal.com/bra-size-calculator-and-chart/ to find the right size before you buy it from this site.

Browsing through the latest finds can be a good way to while away the time it takes a kid to fall asleep beside me.

Where things really get fun is when I start to look at stuff that has been wickedly marked down. If I’m going to look at stuff that’s 70% off, why limit myself to my usual brands? Let’s look at all dresses that are on sale. All red dresses, anyhow.

The first thing to do is to narrow that search to dresses available in my actual size. I pick two sizes, in case there’s a gorgeous dress that runs small.

Then I can sort by price, so that I see the least expensive options first.

It’s hard to argue with a $17 dress.

Worst case scenario is that I’m out $17. And the $17 jeans I ordered on a ShopStyle-inspired whim have turned out to be my favorite jeans of all time.

But hey! I could have a Valentino dress.

It’s only a bit over $200. I’ve paid that much for the occasional special dress — and not nearly this special!

For just a little more, though, I could buy a thousand-dollar Calvin Klein dress in a classic style that I could wear forever….if I were the kind of person who liked classic.

Holy! It’s an actual Halston. That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, except that I was just looking at an old Sex and the City picture, and SJP was wearing a Halston dress.

Or I could have an actual Alexander McQueen! OK, it wouldn’t actually look good on me, and it is a crazy amount of money — but imagine what it would feel like to wear a $4,000 dress!

If I’m going to make a major investment, maybe it should be in something I’ll get more use out of — like a perfectly cut, perfectly made Armani suit.

But a black pantsuit is just a black pantsuit. If I’m going to splurge, shouldn’t it be on something unusual?

It’s not as flashy, but this Donna Karan beauty caught my eye. Then I realized it’s just the more expensive version of a jacket I bought this fall at Talbot’s. I wonder if the button on the more expensive version would have survived the first wearing.

But I don’t have a blue jacket! And this one has a pointy collar, and it’s a steal!

Better yet, a military jacket! I had the army surplus version of this in high school, and I loved it. Of course, I didn’t have boobs yet. OK, so maybe it’s not a wise impulse buy.

You know what’s not a big spur-of-the-moment investment? Tights.
They’re not Valentino. But they’ll look great layered over some lemon yellow tights.