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"Longtime readers of this blog know that I tend to get gushy over lots of things (Target! The Real Housewives! Michelle Obama!), but my recent discovery of a bona fide genius blog called Penny Chic has left me just about short of superlatives for describing how much I heart it. Instead, I thought I&amp;#x27;d introduce you dolls to the brains behind it, Shauna Miller, who styles adorable looks using nothing but clothes from Wal-Mart. Yeah, really. Back in 2008, Shauna (above, in Wal-Mart&amp;#x27;s finest!) finished college and found that, surprise surprise, plum gigs in the fashion industry weren&amp;#x27;t exactly easy to come by, especially in the midst of a devastated economy. That&amp;#x27;s when she decided to get truly democratic about fashion and eventually launched Penny Chic, using her friends as models, her mom as photographer, and her four years worth of experience interning in the fashion industry to create glossy-mag-worthy looks on a seriously strict budget. I was shocked at what she was able to do with $30--sometimes for an entire outfit--and caught up with her to chat about stretching your style dollars as far as you can. STF: Where did you get the idea to start Penny Chic? Were you already a Walmart shopper? SM: I came up with the concept behind PENNY CHIC before I even stepped foot in a Wal-Mart, if you can believe that. After I graduated NYU in 2008, I applied to maybe 100 positions in editorial fashion and couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t get a job anywhere. Fed up with that world, I decided I wanted to start something on my own that hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t been done before. I knew that styling was my calling, but I wanted a challenge. The idea of dressing women with a budget of $10K was no longer interesting to me. The real challenge is dressing someone head-to-toe with a budget of $50 and making it look chic. I love stylists like Rachel Zoe, but she&amp;amp;#8217;s a stylist for the rich and famous. My dream was to become a stylist for the people. The blog seemed like the perfect platform to play out this new movement in fashion. Blogging is not pretentious, it&amp;amp;#8217;s free, it&amp;amp;#8217;s interactive and very of the moment. I started doing some research on the most widely used and notoriously un-chic retailer in America, Wal-Mart. 138 Million people ashop at Wal-Mart every week and no one in fashion was talking about it. Millions of women shop at Wal-Mart out of necessity, because it&amp;amp;#8217;s the lowest cost provider, but it was time someone made them feel good about it. STF: What is the biggest challenge in putting cute outfits together from Wal-mart? SM: When I go into their stores I really have to use my imagination when I pick out clothing. I carefully asses each item and imagine what it would look like in a trendy setting. The other challenge I&amp;amp;#8217;ve faced is learning how to style for all body types. The models I feature on the site, besides me, are my friends and family. All of us represent different body types, which is what makes the site so cool. Wal-Mart does a really good job of catering to different sized customers from tweens to plus-size women, so I&amp;amp;#8217;ve had access to apparel in a range of different sizes, unlike most department stores. STF: What&amp;#x27;s the biggest pleasant surprise? SM: The surprising part is that a lot of the clothes, when styled correctly, could pass for a look you&amp;amp;#8217;d find in a magazine or on the runway. Brands like Norma Kamali, OP, Miss Tina (Beyonce&amp;amp;#8217;s mom), and L.E.I. have really changed the game of fashion at Wal-Mart. Sign up for our style newsletter and get the best of our fashion blog, delivered straight to your inbox! STF: Do you now find yourself turned off by prices in regular department stores? How much of your real-life wardrobe comes from non-Wal-Mart stores? SM: Like I said before, prior to starting PENNY CHIC, I had never been to Wal-Mart so I was ignorant to just how low their prices are. A lot of people are like, &amp;amp;#8220;why not Target?&amp;amp;#8221; Target is great, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s a splurge compared to Wal-Mart. After you realize you can make a chic outfit with a budget of $30, it&amp;amp;#8217;s hard to justify buying a white tank top for $30 from another department store. Some of the pieces I have from Wal-Mart are the same exact quality you&amp;amp;#8217;d find anywhere else, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s 10x cheaper! This isn&amp;amp;#8217;t some gimmick. I would be lying if I said my wardrobe was made up of solely Wal-Mart clothes. I mean, I only started shopping there fairly recently. I would say 50% of my outfits consist of pieces purchased from Wal-Mart but ask me again in 6 months and it&amp;amp;#8217;ll probably double! It&amp;amp;#8217;s only a matter of time! STF: What do you do with the clothes after youve photographed them? Do the models keep them? Do they ever surprise you or themselves by wanting to wear them after the shoot is over? SM: I usually keep most of what I model on the site because if I feel good enough to post my picture online, then it&amp;amp;#8217;s probably worth owning. In general, I keep about 20% of what I feature on the site and return the rest (shhhhh). I wish I could keep all of it! My friends initially think they&amp;amp;#8217;re just doing me a favor by modeling, but often they fall in love with some of the pieces and want to take them home. Sometimes I&amp;amp;#8217;ll let them choose one thing as a gift. Other times, friends will pay me for the outfit they modeled for PENNY CHIC because they can&amp;amp;#8217;t part with it! Most of my friends, all city-dwellers, are now converted Wal-Mart shoppers. I&amp;amp;#8217;m introducing a new customer to Wal-Mart, which is very cool. STF: What&amp;amp;#8217;s one piece of advice would you give the girl on a budget? SM: You don&amp;amp;#8217;t have to have a big budget to exercise your sense of style. It&amp;amp;#8217;s easy to look chic when you don&amp;amp;#8217;t have a budget. Fashion right now is changing, not only because of the economy but also due to the simple fact that people all over America are more aware of trends. Discount retailers are now catching on and are catering to a trendier customer. My advice for those on a budget is to read fashion magazines, read blogs like PENNY CHIC, rip/print out the outfits that inspire you and go on a treasure hunt to find pieces that emulate those looks. It&amp;amp;#8217;s fun! STF: What has this whole experiment taught you about getting dressed? Any splurge vs. save lessons you didnt necessarily know before? SM: PENNY CHIC proves that you can make anything look chic if you have a good eye. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not an expert, but I can decipher the cactus flower from the cactus. For those who can afford it, a designer splurge is great every once in a while. But, if you want the honest truth, I&amp;amp;#8217;d rather splurge on the down payment of a house than this season&amp;amp;#8217;s most coveted LBD. Brilliant advice if I&amp;#x27;ve ever heard it! Check out PENNY CHIC now, gals...I know you&amp;#x27;re going to be as inspired and obsessed as I was when I first discovered it! And while we&amp;#x27;re talking budget shopping... - Natalie Portman stuns on the red carpet...in a $49.95 H&amp;amp;M dress! - 9 hot spring handbags, all under $50 - One more reason to love Kate Middleton: She shops at T.J. Maxx! - One dress, five outfits: Why we love Rachel Pally&amp;#x27;s versatile new Target number What&amp;#x27;s With All the Spam in the Comments Section? Sick of all those annoying ads in the comments section lately? So are we! We police the site regularly and delete spam as soon as we can, but recently, the volume of spam has increased dramatically. We&amp;#x27;re working on a way to block them permanently, so please bear with us, and know that we&amp;#x27;re as eager as you are to get read of these pests. Meanwhile, please continue to use the Report Abuse button to flag spam--it really does help!-- and continue to leave your brilliant feedback below. If you have any urgent questions about the spam, please contact us. Photos: Shideh H. Miller Get more great updates from STF--follow us on Twitter! Latest Tweets!Follow us on Twitter!jQuery(&amp;quot;.blog-tweets&amp;quot;).tweet({username:[&amp;quot;glamour_fashion&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;cindi_leive&amp;quot;], count: 3}); "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2011/03/blogging-babes-penny-chic-make>