How to search through all the clothes online?

March 15, 2007 9:44 AM

Online shopping for clothing question.

Does anybody know a good way to shop online for very specific articles of clothing? I'm looking for polyester/rayon blend women's pants, with an elastic waist, no pockets, and no zipper. Size medium, in a dark color. I am having no luck finding anything like that locally, so I'm trying online, but there's just too much stuff to sort through to find what I want. Is there a good search engine for clothing out there?

posted by JanetLand to Shopping (11 answers total)

Have you considered going to a fabric store, finding that particular fabric in the color you want, and then going to a tailor for a custom pair?
posted by infinityjinx at 10:13 AM on March 15, 2007

Froogle is OK, especially if your Google-fu is strong. It's still a lot of looking and disregarding certain results, though.
posted by anaelith at 10:23 AM on March 15, 2007

Is the polyester/rayon a knit or woven?

You may want to try Coldwater Creek or Orvis.
posted by LoriFLA at 10:24 AM on March 15, 2007

I've had such success with Ebay, but sometimes you have to make your search terms a "favorite search" and wait a while. I would start by looking through black, chocolate, navy pants in your size, maybe with "elastic," and then scope them out for zipperlessness etc.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:35 AM on March 15, 2007

I think Land's End has this stuff. LL Bean, also.
posted by Lockjaw at 10:40 AM on March 15, 2007

Best answer: Amazon.com aggregates clothing from lots of retailers, including major department stores and smaller sites. Searching there is like searching Nordstrom, Macys, Target, etc all at once.
posted by junkbox at 10:47 AM on March 15, 2007

It's hard for me to think of worse pants. Apologies. Poly/rayon? No pockets? I'm mystified as to why these would be desirable.

Nobody's going to charge much -- I hope -- for that fabric; have you hit all the seriously bargain-basement places? I suspect you could find them in a thrift shop, or -- well, anywhere that advertises in 'TV Guide.'

Like here.

Sears is also big on cheap fabrics. I have great Google for clothes things most of the time, but this sort of fails me, mostly because so many sites can not -- mystifyingly -- be bothered to say much about fabric content. The no-pockets is also going to make things difficult. You can have somebody sew them shut...

Seconding 'tailor.' That fabric is very easy to find for next-to-nothing, and patterns like that are a dime a dozen.

Can I recommend Tencel? Like rayon, but wears and drapes well. Elastic-waist, no-pocket, rayon-Tencel trousers here; loads of dark colours.
posted by kmennie at 11:01 AM on March 15, 2007

Well, I agree with kmennie. BUT, I know that the lanebryantcatalog and roamans often have stuff like this. they apparently think that elastic no pocket stuff is all fat women can wear. but they have sizes for 'normal' people too.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 11:23 AM on March 15, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks very much for the individual site suggestions, but what I had asked for was a way to search for clothing online more easily and comprehensively -- I gave the specifics only to show the level of detail I was looking for. I think junkbox's answer will work the best for me in that respect.
posted by JanetLand at 11:31 AM on March 15, 2007

If you do decide to search on eBay, Auction Sieve will make your life a whole lot easier.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 1:07 PM on March 15, 2007

Janet, it might help using the term "track pants" in your search(es).
posted by rob511 at 1:56 PM on March 15, 2007