Share Your Expertise With Us

If you’re enjoying this feature, here’s your chance to be a part of a future Dress For Less column by entering our first Best Fashion Bargain contest. We want to know about your all-time best bargain outfit, but hurry: Our deadline is April 30.

This week, my Dress For Less model is wearing the fake fur coat by Donna Salyers, valued at $600, that is part of the $3,500 prize package we’ll award to one savvy shopper.

Other prize contributors to the Best Fashion Bargain contest include designer Sandi Kent, retailers Marshalls, Kinney Shoes and the Dress Barn, and the catalogs of Clifford & Wills and Chadwick’s of Boston.

Here are sources for bargains you might not have heard about.

For discount prices on fragrances that smell just like high-priced designer fragrances, get to your local drugstore and try the products of Fragrance Impressions Limited. Another “just like the designers but much, much less” line is the jewelry from Lady Remington Fashion Jewelry. This merchandise is sold by mail order or through shop-at-home representatives.

I have discovered lovely, reasonably priced fashions in the Your Exceptional Home catalog, which reinforces my advice: Never overlook a source.

Female Auto is a source for unique auto accessories and safety products designed for women.

Finally, if you’ve been shopping for tires and vacuum cleaners at Sears, now’s the time to check out the clothes. This giant retailer has been refocusing its attention on men’s and women’s fashions and it shows. You might be surprised at what you find there this season.

To enter our Best Fashion Bargain contest, send to the address below, a good-quality color photo of the outfit along with details on its purchase, including the prices you paid. Tell me the designer or manufacturer’s name, the original price, and where and when each element of the outfit was purchased.

You must still own the clothes and be willing to send them to me if requested, at my cost, for use in a future Dress For Less column.

Include your name, age, address, and daytime and evening telephone numbers with your entry. All entries must be received by April 30. Photos are not returnable.

MEMO: Dress For Less runs weekly on Choices. All of the best looks and fashion bargains featured in this column are available in book form. Send $9.95 to Dress For Less, 177 Sound Beach Ave., Suite 6, Old Greenwich, CT 06870. For information about the sources mentioned here send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the same address.