Best for 2016

We hope that you are looking for the best aspects of 2016 in regard to fashion relevant topics. If you are, you are welcome to stick around: this section gathers the top notch, style savvy consumer resources of the year — the handbags, shoes, reading, shopping sites and social sites that a fashion consumer would most enjoy in 2016.

Five guides make up the section. The handbag guide works through eight designer bags, from a Jimmy Choo crossbody to a Proenza Schouler bucket bag. The shoe guide runs over two pages, from a caged Louboutin sandal to a run of Jimmy Choo denim booties and a serious winter boot. The reading guide lists the fashion blogs worth following in 2016, the shopping guide sorts the year's online stores by size and specialty, and the social guide names the social sites a fashionista should actually use.

The Best of 2016 Guides

Best Handbags 2016 Best Shoes 2016 Best Reading Materials 2016 Best Shopping 2016 Best Social Web 2016

Five Guides, One Fashion Year

Each guide answers a different consumer question. The handbag and shoe guides are product guides: named designs, the stores that carried them, and the details — heel heights, strap drops, materials — that decide whether a piece works. The reading and social guides are media guides: where fashion conversation actually happened in 2016, which by then meant blogs and social platforms far more than print. The shopping guide sits between the two, mapping the online stores themselves, from the largest general destinations down to small specialist boutiques.

Taken together the five guides sketch the consumer fashion landscape of 2016: designer product still led the wish lists, but discovery had moved online — to blogs for opinion, to social feeds for daily inspiration, and to a widening field of online stores for the purchase itself.

Suggestions Are Part of the Method

Do you know better style sites that are not listed in this section? Please let us know the best that you find. It would be our pleasure to update this section — the guides exist to help educate the world about what was trending in 2016 in regard to clothes, footwear and fashion accessories, and a reader's find improves them.

That openness runs through every guide in the section. The handbag page says more glorious handbags may be added, with no promises. The shoe page asks outright whether any amazing 2016 shoe trends were missed and invites readers to argue for additions or removals. A best-of list that cannot be argued with is just an advertisement; these were built as recommendations, open to correction.

How the 2016 Section Compares With Earlier Years

The 2015 guides covered handbags, shoes and shopping. The 2016 section widens the lens: reading and social earn their own guides, reflecting how central blogs and social media had become to the way consumers followed fashion — a change the reading guide states plainly when it notes that in 2016 the majority of reading about fashion took place online.

The best of 2015 hub remains the natural companion to this page, and the wider best of fashion for consumers collection gathers the consumer guides across years and topics. Many resources from earlier years were still beneficial in 2016, and the year guides are best read as a running series rather than as rivals.

A Historical Record of 2016

These pages are kept as a historical 2016 record. The products, store lineups and platform judgments describe that year: prices and availability have changed, some stores on the shopping list have since closed or been absorbed, and the social guide's blunt verdict on one platform belongs to its moment. The brand, store and platform links are the place to check what each company offers today.

Thank you for using the Apparel Search website. Start with whichever guide matches what you are looking for — a bag, a pair of shoes, something good to read, a store to try, or a feed worth following — and the rest of the section is one click away from there.