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Click your way to style

source Santa Barbara Newspress

By Gina Tolleson

Click

your way to style

Ilove ordering online.

There's no pressure to look hip while buying hip clothes. It's just me in my comfy sweats with a coffee mug and a credit card.

C'mon, you know what I'm talking about . . . perusing Saks in your PJs or looking for "the dress" after an aerobic workout doesn't exactly get the sales clerks running to get you a dressing room.

Purchasing fashion online is as easy as click, "Ooh, I like that" . . . click, "Cool, they have my size" . . . click, "Your credit card has reached its limit, Ms. Tolleson."

The dot.com biz may have gone bust a few years back, but selling fashion on the Web has gone "boom chica boom" lately. Global fashionistas, armed with a wireless mouse and a serious bank account, are burning up the Internet shopping for style.

In fact, they seem to be shopping for "our" style. That casual but luxe, sex-on-the-beach style that S.B. is getting known for. Forget "Laguna Beach" and "The O.C." hipsters on MTV -- Brits, Berliners, even the Parisians, are Googling their way to a State Street look.

Back in 2000, Jodi McMillen, a savvy and fashion-minded local entrepreneur, decided to throw her hat into the Web fashion ring and founded www.blaec.com. ("Blaec" is the old English spelling of "black," to go with her original concept of having only black clothing on the site.) McMillen, a former SBCC teacher and editorial assistant for an UCSB environmental journal, was influenced as a child by her mother's exquisite style and shopping acumen while growing up in Connecticut. With no Web experience or financing at all, she researched "how to start a Web site" in the local library and cautiously built a small inventory of jeans and other special items in a small house off De la Guerra Street.

"(The site) really took off when Gwyneth Paltrow was photographed wearing a pair of Blue Cult jeans that we carried on the site," says the model-thin McMillen, who looks just as good in a pair of jeans as Paltrow herself. "We were listed in several magazines as a source, and we got so many hits."

Now, blaec.com is a fashionista and Hollywood stylist staple (she often provides clothes for movies and TV shows), as well as a popular Web site favorite of many shopping bibles such as Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire. Blaec.com is known for having cutting-edge designers such as Mason, Rock & Republic and Sass and Bide in their signature Web "window shopping" graphics. (Different outfits are styled on mannequins, you can click on what you like, and then the separate items are shown to the consumer.)

Just as a shop's street window changes, the site changes the offerings often, so devotees have to check in weekly, sometimes even daily, to see what's new. A-List loves Ya Ya's boheme coat, Sass and Bide's frayed misfits skinny jeans with a Mason Lurex cable vest, and a lush, blush yummy coat by Phillip Lim.

McMillen (who dresses herself in designer favorites Phillip Lim and Anna Sui) keeps her stock and her office lean with only seven employees (all of which are local grads of SBCC, UCSB or Brooks) and had a reported annual gross of $2 million last year. Cha-ching .

• • •

CoutureCandy.com, the new local kid on the cyber block, started its Web engines in the summer of 2005. Founded by local fashion guru Jill Johnson (of trendy True Grit fame), investors Matt Hunter of Ascendim Inc. and Eric Jones (of Jones Equity Partners), the site has launched a revolutionary business model by enabling designers and retailers to sell their inventory through the site, having them manage their inventory and ship all sales; thus increasing their profitability without the expenses of building and marketing their own e-commerce site. Many designers are eating up the exposure and the exclusive online boutique reported a 57 percent increase in November sales.

"Denim Jeans accounted for most of the sales over the holiday shopping month, from designers such as Kasil Jeans, 575 Denim and True Religion Jeans," states Jill Johnson, CEO of CoutureCandy.com.

Johnson (who can rock a pair of denim like no other blonde around) can't get enough of Odyn Jeans, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Gwen Stefani for L.A.M.B., Mary Ramblin for Moe C.L.I.C.K. bags (the bags are ingenious little evening trinkets), Lauren Moffat, Ella Moss, Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent -- all of which are offered "runway" style on the site.

With added features such as on-site LivePerson, Podcasts (which were ranked No. 1 on iTunes recently) and Personal Stylists, Couturecandy.com is making shopping sweeter and way more fun.

And all while I sit on my couch.

Click.

Gina Tolleson is executive editor of Santa Barbara magazine. E-mail her at life@newpress.com.