Chictopia

I love Chictopia! It's a real cool website where you can become a fashion trend-setter. Where you can inspire others with your taste in fashion by uploading photos of yourself. I actually wrote an article about this site.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/*******/become_a_fashion_trendsetterchictopiacom.html?cat=46

I bought six tops to take on vacation. The material used to make the shirts is so incredibly cheap and the graphics are amateurish. I swear one top is made of partially recycled grocery bags. Don't waste your money. These clothes are the worst.

Similar to lookbook.nu, where basically users can submit their own outfit photos, receive comments and post comments about other users. It's kind of like a facebook for dedicated fashionistas who are all too hip for the common mortal. Sarcasm aside, it is interesting to browse some of the outfits from French girls, for example who tend to espouse a certain aesthetic and photo sensibility. Last time I checked, they had a points system for doing things like commenting/receiving comments/etc that you use to redeem for actual products.

This is what happens when you build a community and then keep all the guys out. Both fashionable girls and fashion designers and retailers can join up and post images of themselves or of their models, respectively. But this is mainly for the girls to post their own shots and gaze at the more- or less- fashionable shots that others have uploaded. Girls can browse fashions according to their tastes or even their body shapes, they can share their opinions on particular brands according to a number of criteria, there's an active forum and many active bloggers and when I went past, more than 700 users online, all of whom can do the obligatory social networking things such as having 489 friends. There's also an opportunity to buy some of the fashions on show.

What else can I say? It's a young, female thing. And since I'm neither, I'm totally unqualified to give this a rating, really. Nevertheless, looking at the sheer enthusiasm of the members and the overall quality feel of the site, I feel sure that just about every teenage girl with money to spend on fashion is going to love this to bits.

Mind you, so are a lot of much older men who should know better, but as it seems that lots of images are a must, there's less chance of male predators posing as girls here than on other communities. However, it is, sadly, a risk that parents should bear in mind as the opportunity to join a community comprising thousands of teenage girls may be too good to miss for some people out there. There's a very good atmosphere on the site, and no suggestion that anything goes on or could go on here that isn't wholesome and safe. Parents won't be able to keep their daughters out once they find it, though, so you might just want to have a nose around for yourself to make sure you're comfortable with your kids using this.