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Google’s Boutiques.com pops up shop

Google’s latest venture, fashion website Boutiques.com, is open and ready for customers. The site, launched Wednesday, is shoppers’ paradise – online. Anticipated to grab a huge share of the Internet fashion market, this new online center allows you to shop and compare thousands of brands with a click of a mouse. A multitude of celebrities, such as Olivia Palermo and the Olsen twins, are jumping on board with their own boutiques, as are designers Anna Sui, Badgley Mischka, Diane von Furstenberg and Halston Heritage.

Find that perfect treasure through quizzes, recommendations, celebrities’ and friends’ picks and – of course – searches. Here is the lowdown on how the site operates.

The site makes a valiant attempt to learn your preferences. First, head to the stylizer quiz, where you click which picture of two different looks is more your style. The next step is to decide which of an impressive array of colors, patterns and silhouettes are your “hates” and which are your “loves.” The final touch is to select your least favorite and most favorite designers. After inputting your personal preferences, the site will recommend specific boutiques and specific items, tailored just to you.

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The site is easy to navigate. You may visit boutiques, choosing to look at the most popular or the most recommended for you, or by specific designer, trend, genre or celebrity. After selecting a boutique, you can see that boutique’s favorites, and either save the item, share the item with others, or label it another “hate” or “love.”

For those boutiques that particularly pop for you, you may also choose to “follow” a specific boutique. You have the option of producing your own boutique and sharing your picks with friends – and anyone else online – in a networking system that keeps branching out. The site tracks your preferences, giving you recommendations and results that just keep getting better.

Boutiques.com, in fact, works by a specially engineer-designed system where the computer is taught to understand a variety of patterns, pairings and genre definitions, allowing the site to truly crack your personal style.

Another way to approach the site is to search for specific items, with an incredible array of options and categories to help you on your way. Clicking on a picture of the item you want will transport you straight to the site of the retailer, where you can purchase whatever you desire.

But the site comes with even more kicks. Inspiration photos on the right of the search items give ideas for how to assemble an entire look around that piece. “Shop to Complete the Look” suggests complementary articles, such as the perfect jazzy pair of shoes to compliment the purse you are viewing. “Visually Similar Items” suggests dozens of alternatives if you like an item, but perhaps the price, size or the color is not your thing. Finally, the site is “trend aware”: The more frequently a search term is entered, the more those types of items will be featured.

And the celebrities are flocking to the project in droves. The famous fashionables that are creating their own shops include Anna Paquin of “True Blood,” “Mad Men”’s Elisabeth Moss, Iman, Kelly Osbourne, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Carey Mulligan. Bloggers such as BryanBoy, Gala Darling, SusieBubble and BleachBlack also have their own stores to peruse.

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Designers are likewise signing up. More than 30 designers have boutiques on the site, including Alice + Olivia, Catherine Malandrino, Christian Siriano, Cynthia Rowley, Cynthia Steffe, Derek Lam, Isaac Mizrahi, Kate Spade, Marchesa, Oscar de la Renta, Rag & Bone, Rebecca Taylor, Tracy Reese, Betsey Johnson and Tory Burch.

All told, the site appears to offer endless hours of personalized shopping – or at least a lot of fun!

Tagged in: fashion, shopping, online, google, boutiques, boutiques.com,

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