CJ Fashion Shopping Guide
Ten fashion stores in one guide — clubwear to cashmere, denim to pre-owned luxury — and the affiliate network behind the links
Welcome to a fashion shopping guide with a practical mix: some of the stores below are trendy, some are economical, and some sit directly down the middle. Between them they cover women's clubwear and dresses, cashmere knitwear, premium denim, fashion footwear for women and men, optimistic casual apparel, plus size fashion, and a marketplace for new and pre-owned luxury goods — a full wardrobe's worth of specialties rather than ten versions of the same shop.
The CJ in the title is Commission Junction, the affiliate network through which stores of this kind have long been gathered into shopping guides like this one. Browsing costs nothing and there is no need to buy something on every visit — the value of a guide like this is knowing which store does what before you need it. The stores come first below, each with the specialty it is known for; the short explanation of how CJ itself works follows, for readers curious about the machinery behind affiliate shopping links.
Prefer to start from one big marketplace instead of a shelf of separate boutiques? The Apparel Search Amazon clothing guide gathers the marketplace fashion departments in one place — and this guide's stores are waiting below when a specialty shop is the better fit.
The Fashion Stores in This Guide
- Amiclubwear — Women's dresses and club clothes at discount prices, plus shoes and accessories. A leading online retailer of fashionable club apparel for women of all ages, featuring new and exciting product each day.
- Cashmere Boutique — An online boutique for fine cashmere apparel, cashmere throws and blankets, and pashmina scarves and shawls. Launched in 1999.
- Chinese Laundry — Fashion footwear for young women, launched in 1981: stylish daytime looks in innovative fabrics and leathers through to evening collections in metallics and satins, carried in nearly every major department store.
- Couture Candy — Designer labels gathered from across the country into one fashion community, with discount promotions of up to 30% off listed prices and one simple checkout across brands.
- DL 1961 — New York City based premium denim built exclusively around XFIT Lycra fabric — jeans engineered for a precise fit, aimed at women who want perfect-fitting denim.
- FRYE — The Frye Company is an American boot manufacturer and the oldest continuously operated shoe company in the United States, its boots, shoes and bags made by artisans since 1863.
- Life is Good — The Boston, Massachusetts company spreading a fresh outlook on life through a colorful collection of apparel and quality accessories, fronted by its smiling character, Jake.
- Lugz — Fashion footwear for men — boots, shoes and sneakers designed for work, play and home. In business since 1993, with national exposure through extensive retail distribution.
- The Luxury Closet — An online boutique for buying and selling new and pre-owned luxury items — handbags, clothes, watches and jewelry — with more than 16,000 unique items from brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Cartier and Rolex, delivered globally.
- Ulla Popken — Women's plus size clothing is the specialty, refined over more than 20 years: tops, bottoms, dresses, occasion, career, loungewear, activewear, swim and coats in sizes 0X (12) to 5X (38), with wide-width and wide-calf shoes to size 12.
How CJ Affiliate Shopping Works
Commission Junction — CJ — operates one of the largest and most highly regarded affiliate networks in the world. Founded in 1998, it built its name on platform innovation and on setting quality and compliance standards for the industry. In an affiliate network, a retailer (the advertiser) offers a program, independent websites and creators (publishers) join it, and the network's systems trace the transactions that begin with a publisher's link back to their source, so the right commission lands in the right account.
The payment models are flexible by design: shared revenue models, straightforward percentage commissions on sales, and finder or referral fees for sending a store a customer or a lead. Marketers large and small use the network to establish and optimize marketing partnerships, choosing to manage their own affiliate relationships or to have them managed. For shoppers, all of this is invisible — you click through to an ordinary store and check out at the store's own prices; the commission is the retailer's marketing cost, settled between the store, the network and the publisher.
Choosing Among the Stores
Start with the specialty, not the sale banner. A cashmere boutique and a premium-denim label solve different wardrobe problems, and the descriptions above are deliberately specific — sizes, fabrics and founding details included — so the right store can be picked in seconds. Two checks repay the minute they take: the size range, which on the plus size entry here runs to 5X with wide-width and wide-calf footwear, and the nature of the goods, since the pre-owned luxury marketplace is a different kind of purchase from a new-season store and rewards a careful read of each item's condition notes.
The browsing shelf around these stores runs wider still: retailers in this corner of the shopping guide also offer trendsetting casual fashions for men and women from surf and skate labels such as Roxy, Hurley, Billabong, Quiksilver and O'Neill, and there is even a serious selection of cowboy hats — straw, wool, fur and outback styles from makers such as Stetson and Resistol. A guide earns its keep when it sends you to one well-matched store instead of ten near misses.
Common Questions
What is CJ (Commission Junction)?
CJ is an affiliate network founded in 1998 that connects retailers with the websites and creators who promote them. Its systems track sales back to the link that produced them, so retailers can pay commissions, shared revenue or referral fees accurately.
Does shopping through an affiliate link cost more?
No. You check out on the store's own site at the store's own prices. The commission is paid by the retailer out of its marketing budget and settled through the network — it is not added to the price of what you buy.
What kinds of fashion stores does this guide collect?
Specialists rather than generalists: women's clubwear, cashmere apparel and throws, premium denim, women's and men's footwear, casual apparel, women's plus size clothing up to 5X, and a marketplace for new and pre-owned luxury handbags, clothing, watches and jewelry.