I Have Expensive Taste But a Shoestring Budget—29 New Arrivals That Just Get Me

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(Image credit: @bettinalooney)

If shopping is an art, you could certainly call me Picasso. My specialty? Sourcing luxurious-looking finds that, in reality, cost way less than you'd even guess. And when it comes to sifting through pieces that look expensive, it's all about the minutia—the "little" things like hardware, fabrics, and buttons. It takes some time and practice to get it down pat, but as I am an editor who has a hearty and ever-growing list of bookmarked shopping sites, it's second nature at this point.

With summer at everyone's doorstep, I decided to flex my skills to find the best new arrivals that hit on that expensive-looking yet inexpensive niche. After all, those exotic summer getaways aren't going to pay for themselves. Below, see the results of my latest digital window-shopping session. I've included everything from elevated tailored pieces to chic and low-maintenance matching sets. To see the full list, keep scrolling. 

Next up: I Rebuilt My Entire Underwear Collection—Here Are the Pairs I'm Buying

Fashion Market Editor

Indya Brown is a fashion editor, stylist, and writer living in Los Angeles. While going to school at Columbia University in New York City, she got her feet wet in the fashion industry interning at Elle magazine, Harper's Bazaar, and New York magazine's The Cut. After graduating in 2016, she joined The Cut as a fashion assistant, eventually working her way up to fashion editor. There, she worked on a multitude of projects, including styling inbook feature stories for New York magazine's print issue, writing and pitching market stories for The Cut, and serving as fashion lead for The Cut's branded content. While New York has been her home for over 10 years, she moved to Los Angeles in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 for a new chapter. Now she is a fashion market editor for Who What Wear, focusing on emerging designers, rising trends on and off the internet, interior design, and BIPOC creatives and brands. Aside from her duties as a fashion market editor, Brown is also a freelance stylist and writer, working on national print and video commercial campaigns for Sephora, The Independent, and Cadillac. Her bylines also include Harper's Bazaar, Vox, and The New York Times. But once the computer goes down and the emails turn off, she's likely eating her way through Koreatown, hunting down vintage furniture, scoping out new outrageous nail designs to try, or taking a hot cycling class.