Click and Shop

Now you can do all the shopping without the walking. Just some clicking will suffice.
By Ronald Wan

The malls are increasing and the shops and boutiques are endless. There’s a plethora of choices to satisfy your fashion needs. You want a pair of skinny jeans; you can get it at Gap. You want a loud striped shirt; you can get it at Paul Smith. You want nice lingerie, you can get it at La Senza. So, what else is left?

For some people, they just can’t find what they want at the malls. You would be surprised. At the malls are big label boutiques that churn out stuff in bulks that probably someone else is wearing it too. If you want to be different and unique, we probably won’t find you in a mall. You should be hunting for good buys at one of the shops at Haji Lane, Amoy Street or you guessed it right – online websites.

The last we checked, many people are burning their credit card online, shopping at any imaginable site, from obscure blogs and websites to Amazon. What’s the real deal here? Are the products safe and usable? If we can’t feel it, should we buy it? Is it safe to give credit card details online? Put these questions and shop at your own risk. There’s where the fun is. You click. You buy. It’s a free world out there, even on the Internet highway. We feature three local sites where girls are flocking to for their irresistible buys.

La Piccola Donna
La Piccola Donna means The Little Woman in Italian, but it isn’t a hot Italian woman behind the site. Darn. Instead, we have Aileen Yang, a local Singaporean girl setting up the site to sell vintage accessories and contemporary dresses. The clothes are brought in from a local supplier and the accessories from the States. The dresses are especially feminine, with floral prints a main feature and perhaps to celebrate the little woman spirit. Accessories include the vintage necklaces, which are the bestseller. For those with a taste for something girly, like a little woman as the name suggests, do check out this site (includes mailing list).

Bonito Chico
The dresses here are sold like hotcakes on a Sunday morning. One gets the impression that most of the dresses sold here are party dresses you will wear to a Saturday’s night out. It’s popular with the young working girls (the site name means pretty girl) and especially those with extra credit to burn, because there are even designer shoes (Stuart Weitzman) and shades (Marc Jacobs) sold here. Set up by three girls, Vel, Rach and Lin, the site is conveniently equipped with a mailing list. And for boys hoping for some eye candy on the site, the models used here are faceless, so in other words, forget about it.

Glamz Style
We suspect the duo (Juliana & Weixing) behind the site are students studying in a business faculty or are in some marketing job, because they dangle carrots like 10% discount and shopping sprees (read: massive sales) for her customers. Very entrepreneurial indeed. The clothes here are from Taiwan and Korea, a variety of babydoll dresses, ruffles tops, cropped shorts and the likes of leggings and what’s hot in those Taiwanese magazines.