You May Be Living in the Wrong City — For Style, That Is!

Every week, we bring you the best shoppable fashion and lifestyle stories from our partner Lifestyle Mirror. Today, we're sharing Fawnia Soo Hoo's roundup of the most stylish cities.
Planning a retail-therapy-filled trip soon and need some suggestions? Or maybe you're wondering where your town ranks on the sartorial scale? From the shopping paradise of New York City to the indie-music-meets-fashion scene in Nashville, style abounds in the US of A. To find how where the haute hotspots are located, we considered factors including the number of design schools, the diversity and quality of shopping opportunities, and the number of brands based in each city.

1. New York It’s the fashion capital of the US. (and some may argue the world). New York City is, of course, the host of NYFW, a base for the majority of the country's fashion brands from Alexander Wang to Diane von Furstenberg. It's also home to more than 75 industry trade shows a year and the top design schools in the country, including Parsons and Fashion Institute of Technology. Plus, the city is a shopping paradise — boasting the flagships of luxury department stores, a growing list of cutting-edge boutiques, and countless designer standalone storefronts and indie shops. Coolest new spot: Rei Kawakubo's Dover Street Market, which opened late last year.

2. Los Angeles LA is poised to be the next fashion capital of the US, with influential labels like Rodarte, Band of Outsiders, Monique Lhuillier, and the buzzy Skingraft choosing the City of Angels as their home base, as well as Nasty Gal, Forever 21, American Apparel, and Guess. While the vibe is decidedly more relaxed compared to its East Coast counterpart, the shopping options are just as exciting. There's the opulent Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the hip boutique scene on Abbot Kinney (Steven Alan, Heist), pedestrian-friendly browsing on Melrose (Fred Segal, Creatures of Comfort, Tenoversix, and Isabel Marant on Melrose Place), high street shops on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, plus the West Coast branch of the taste-making Opening Ceremony in West Hollywood. And don't even get us started on the malls — The Grove, Century City Shopping Center, Beverly Center, and more — or that whole star-gazing factor.

3. San Francisco The entrepreneurial tech capital has a fashion sense all its own. Keeping to its signature casual, geek-chic West Coast vibe, the city is home to the headquarters of Gap Inc. and Levi Strauss & Co., plus innovative fashion start-ups like ModCloth and everyone's obsession — Pinterest. Shopping options are just as diverse. There are the high-end luxury stores (Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Barneys New York) in Union Square; the hip, indie shops in the Mission (Gravel & Gold, Bell Jar, Mira Mira); the standalone designer boutiques lining Fillmore Street (Gimme Shoes, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Elizabeth Charles) and Hayes Valley (Rand + Statler, Dish Clothing); and the vintage emporiums on the Upper Haight (Wasteland, Held Over).

See all the cities here, or check out one of these other great Lifestyle Mirror stories:

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