Picked by style experts: girly
All items picked via SoSensational
How incredibly difficult it is to find a brand you've never heard of?! It's all Asos, River Island, Zara, Topshop, maybe some Reiss or even Michael Kors nowadays, but c'mon - these are not the only brands in the whole world. What about all those smaller (or maybe not even small, but just totally hidden) but still immensely beautiful brands you've never come across? Where to look for these? Style experts websites are one option! Scroll down to see how they work & why you should not leave them out of your fashion radar. 

SoSensational is a great example of a style experts website. Here's an overview of all the things you can find on it.

 Style advice & tips:
Style experts are usually quite hard to reach by us mortals (unless you're a friend with one). SoSensational is run by Jan & Cyndy - both experts in their field. Jan has been a journalist and writer for over 35 years & Cyndy is an image consultant - a pretty good combination of skills & knowledge right there! On their website they give you a style, beauty and shopping advice which is something quite rare on websites other than blogs (which are just a tad different as they are usually not written by industry insiders). You can read everything from how to get the right bra size to what hair cut suits your face shape the best. Based on my experience - this sort of advice is priceless. I wish someone told me 10 years ago what my actual bra size was, dammit! (Read the bra article here)

Brands you've never heard of:
The absolutely best thing about SoSensational and other style guide websites is that they feature handpicked brands they're sure you will like (a little bit like Asos brands but more personalized and less mainstream). See my picks in the image above? I absolutely love all the pieces - and I'm pretty sure I haven't seen them on any other website or in any high street shop! My absolute favourites are Caramel Clothing (even the name of this brand is adorable!) and Lisa Ryder handbags. Not gonna lie - they are not exactly my every day price range, but a girl needs to treat herself every now & then and in all honesty, I'd rather spend my monies on a unique handbag like the one from Lisa Ryder's collection than to have the same Kors handbag like the rest of Birmingham. Hashtag bore.  

 Sale:
There's also a collective sale tab which collates sale items from all the swanky stores - incl some hot sale pieces from Reiss too (yup, I'm still on the hunt for the striking powder blue coord!). A page to bookmark, me thinks! 

Where do you usually look for new brands?
Or are you happy with the mainstream?