It takes little effort to find affordable jeans

Jessica Simpson favors Escada’s designer jeans ($2,550) and Claire Danes has been known to “slum” it in a pair of Zac Posen’s limited-edition creations for 7 for All Mankind ($995). Yet most of us would like to spend $100 or less for denim. Preferably much less.

These girls and boys just want to have fun

Brooke Shoemaker has a surefire strategy for never appearing in public wearing the same outfit as some other woman: Dress so quirky, so creatively, so out there that there’s no way to duplicate the getup or the xpressions made by passersby as she strolls around, clad in a vintage floral dress, jelly bracelets, fake pearls, way oversize sunglasses and her trusty Van sneakers.