I’m Way Past High School, But I Love This Juniors’ Website

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I am painfully aware that the e-commerce site Lulus is a “juniors” website. Yes, it’s primarily designed for teens and young women, and yes, I am far beyond that stage of life. But listen: I just love it. Go ahead and scoff.

I’m a freelance writer, which means I wear athleisure on a daily basis. I can stand around in high heels for approximately 25 minutes before writhing around in pain. I hate jeans and haven’t worn them since the year 2014. In summation, I am the opposite of a fashionista. And yet, this juniors website famous for tiny dresses is. My. Jam.

If you’re not familiar with Lulus, it falls somewhere on the fashion spectrum between Forever 21 and the Bloomingdale’s in-house brand Aqua. I’m not sure when or how I was introduced to the site, though I’d bet a targeted Facebook ad is the culprit.

The majority of Lulus items are under $100, and most dresses hover around the $50 mark. There’s a homecoming dresses section (cute), everything is searchable by color and length, and there is almost always a sale. The beauty of Lulus is that it always has something that will make me feel like whatever I am trying to be, whether that’s someone who goes to the beach and doesn’t worry about getting her hair wet, someone ready to walk into an intimidating makeup PR event and rock it, or someone who is not hideously uncomfortable at a nightclub.

There’s the floral two-piece maxi dress that finally convinced me maxi-length skirts could actually look flattering on me. I wore either the red off-the-shoulder skater dress or the black long-sleeve shift dress to every dinner outing this summer. The Tip The Scallops Black Dress is one of my favorite go-to “professional” outfits. And the white dress options are endless, which made it easy for me to amass my extensive and over-the-top wedding-related wardrobe for my bachelorette party and bridal shower this summer.

Other Lulus aficionados post photos with the specialized hashtag #lovelulus, hoping to be featured on the site’s social media page. The overwhelming majority of the women spotlighted are young, thin, and white, which is kind of disappointing but not a surprise, and their regrammed photos are almost all pretty product layouts or gorgeously staged images of themselves in tropical places. There are wedding photos and lingerie shots; there are fishtail braids and flower walls. The Lulus girl is, in a word, curated — but on a reasonable budget. And that’s fun.

I’ve never been much of a brand loyalist, but something about this site keeps me coming back. Ultimately, I think that’s because Lulus makes “cool” things accessible to historically non-trendy dressers like me.

The quality is generally a lot better than other fast fashion options like H&M and Forever 21, but what really gets me is the plethora of options. Bell sleeves? I promise, you have never seen so many bell sleeves in your entire life. Cold- and off-the-shoulder? Choose from over a dozen pages’ worth of them. If there’s something you don’t like about a dress, chances are there is something similar but with the shorter skirt or longer sleeves or in the darker color you wanted. What more could you ask for?