Intro

Did you just recently decide you want to look better by dressing better? Maybe you checked out /r/malefashionadvice and it wasn't for you so you discovered /r/streetwear. Maybe you like hip hop and follow your favorite rappers in IG and you want to look like them. Maybe you're in high school and you're sick of getting stunted on by rich kids. Whatever the reason, you found yourself on /r/streetwear looking at inspo albums and WDYWT posts and getting really psyched about cool outfits. Then you found some pictures you REALLY fell in love with. You looked up the prices of the items in the outfit and immediately lost hope of ever looking like that. Then something led you to /r/FashionReps. You're pretty new to streetwear. Your daily outfit is jeans and a graphic tee with some tennis shoes. Maybe cargos and a zip-up hoodie. Whatever. Point is, you're here to completely overhaul your wardrobe and not spend very much money.

If I just described you, this is the guide for you. If none of that hits home, you probably won't get much out of this guide. There will be zero useful information here for people who have been on this sub for a long time.

FashionReps Terms

You may be looking at the front page of /r/FashionReps and see the terms "QC" and "GP" and wonder what the hell are these letters for? Well, how about we explain them.

QC: Quality Control (QC for short) is talking about pictures that are posted from an agent of an item that was ordered. Users will post these if they're unsure about the quality and would rather have someone else take a look at them if they're good enough.

LC: Legit Check (LC for short) Much like the name states, this is a tag used for posts requiring a legit check. Legit checks are a great way of finding out if a item you're purchasing is authentic or not.

GP: Guinea Pig (GP for short) Guinea Pigging is much like being a test subject. In this instance you will be the first person to order a sellers new item. This means you'll be the first to get pictures of their product and often times you'll post them to be checked for quality by the community.

FIND: Much like the name states. Posts with this flair are often linked to new products that haven't been posted before.

W2C: Where To Cop (W2C for short) W2C refers to the search for a desired item. Often times will be linked with retail images for an example.

1:1 One to One (1:1 for short) 1:1 refers to a perfect replica. However, not many exist and often times you won't be able to get these as they're sold out.

GL Green Light (GL for short) GL Refers to a user who has given their approval of a QC post.

RL Red Light (RL for short) RL Refers to a user who has given their disapproval of a QC post.

B&S Bait & Switch (BS or B&S for short) B&S Refers to a seller who has advertised their product and sent goods that are different from advertised.

What web sites exist to buy reps from?

For our purposes, we're going to pretend that a few of the big web sites don't exist. There are lots of sites out there that buy stuff from the web site I'm going to show you how to buy from and then sell for double the price. But you're not a sucker. You're going to buy from a weird ass Chinese web site and get shit for the low.

There's Aliexpress which I do not recommend for several reasons. It's very tempting to buy stuff from Aliexpress but you will get burned. First, the site is Western-facing which means the pressure is on the site's operators to crack down on illegal activity. Aliexpress is widely used around the globe. When there's good fakes on Aliexpress and the link gets shared, the link gets taken away. The administrators of the site need to cover their asses and take down things that get reported. So the stuff that stays up usually isn't very good.

There's DHGate which has a lot of good options for if you only want to buy one thing, especially "non-hype" shoes like Stan Smiths, Old Skools, Nike running shoes, etc.

There's TaoBao. This is the site we'll be talking about. Here's the catch though, it's going to be a little tricky. If you don't want to put in a little work to save a lot of money, then give up on reps right now and save up for legit pieces.

Then there is Weidian. This site is very similar to TaoBao in the sense that they have replica goods and it is a bit tricky to get started. However, you can find many budget batches here.

I clicked on that TaoBao link and it's all in Chinese. How am I ever going to figure this out?

Chill, we got this. For now, we're not going to worry about navigating TaoBao much. That'll come later after you've done a couple orders. Use Google Chrome while rep shopping and utilize the full-page automatic translation by clicking on the translate button in the URL bar. My goal right now, however, is not to overwhelm you more because you're probably already overwhelmed so don't worry if the site looks really confusing even after translating it.

We're going to use an agent.

An agent is a third party with a warehouse that orders things from TaoBao for you then repackages all the items you buy from different sellers into one package and sends it on to you. I'm going to recommend Superbuy. They make it pretty easy for new people to buy stuff from TaoBao. Go to the Superbuy home page and paste this link into the box. You'll see that the page has been automatically translated for you via Google Translate and it looks a little less scary. Feeling calmer yet? Superbuy is going to make it almost as easy as shopping on Amazon.

You can sign up for Superbuy by clicking here upon signing up you'll automatically receive $27 worth of coupons to aid you towards shipping out your first haul!

Here's a video with a 1:1 cutie explaining Superbuy if it's confusing for you.

Note: I chose Superbuy because they have the best interface and reasonable fees, as far as I can tell.

Alright, I've made an account with the agent. What do I buy?

Okay, so the catch here is that I'm going to give you the outline of a basic streetwear capsule wardrobe for you to build upon. A capsule wardrobe is a wardrobe made up of few pieces that are simple and can be combined in many ways to create many outfits. I'll try to include a few simple hype pieces because, let's be real, you want to get some hype shit. We all do.

Bottoms: Fear of God zipper pants & Represent distressed skinny jeans in blue and/or H&M skinny low jeans (as cheap as most rep jeans)

Tops: Layering tees in pretty much every color, Basic hoodies in black, beige (apricot), and gray, or Yeezy-style hoodies if you want to spend a little more for a different cut, Thin bomber in black and/or olive green (very thin, this is a windbreaker not a winter coat). The other tops I'll recommend are Faded Glory flannels from Wal-Mart and Hane's Beefy tees. These items are as cheap in the US as they are from TaoBao for the most part. If you're not in the US I'm sure there is a local equivalent. If you need a winter coat, I don't recommend finding a rep. Quality seriously matters if you live in the frozen north and you don't want to take any chances.

Hats: Hat store. I own quite a few hats from this store and most of them are pretty good quality. Some have even survived an accidental cycle in the washer!

Shoes: Replica Shoes are one of the hottest categories of replicas right now. However, there are some dos and donts for replica shoes. Here is a list of sellers that currently offer a very wide variety of shoes and are trusted within the replica community. If you're looking for some basic shoes I definitely recommend going for Boostmaster Lins Budget Ultraboosts. Lins Ultraboosts are a great shoe that costs on average $20~$30 and offers the very comfort of retails as well with a very close to retail look!

• Boostmaster Lin (BMLin)
• Cocosneakers (Coco)
• FlightKickz (LN5)
• JoyStudio (Joy)
• Kickwho.vip (H12/KW)
• Staysucc.net (Vicky)
• Tonysneakers.ru (Real Tony)
• Willsneakers.ru (Will)

Easy To Use Websites: Now you may be wondering if there is a ability to purchase goods from Taobao without a big hassle. Luckily in the recent year we had some new provisions made by sellers and they created sites that are easier to browse than Taobao. Now you aren't able to get everything off of these websites but they offer a good starting level for those who are looking to not dive into Taobao just yet. I definitely recommend using Superbuy and their $27 worth of shipping coupons you'll get from Superbuy by just signing up

• CNFashionPub offers a great deal of hypebeast & streetwear clothing.
• CNLuxuryPub offers a great deal of designer-wear clothing.
• CNFashionBuy offers a great deal of streetwear shoes and accessories.

The beauty of creating such a simple wardrobe is that you can mix and match in almost any possible combination and end up with a decent looking outfit. 1 or 2 pairs of pants, 5 or 6 tees, 2 or 3 hoodies, a couple of flannels, 1 pair of shoes. Lots of combos. And you've spent less than $250, maybe a lot less. For the price of one Supreme hoodie, you just built an entire wardrobe. It's basic, yes, but it's a start.

How do I know what size to buy?

This is a VERY important question. Some products will be reproduced with the same original size designations. Others will be shifted to better accommodate their Asian clients. Some items purchased from Tao could be a Large that fits like a US XS. So you really need to pay attention.

When you find a piece you like, it's time to pick the correct size. Most of the time, sellers will have a size chart towards the bottom of the item page. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.

Here are the translations for sizing:

肩宽 - Shoulder Width

胸围 - Bust

衣长 - Length

The surefire way of picking the correct size is to identify the type of item you're purchasing (shirt, coat, pants, underwear) and measure an item of that type you own. So, if I wanted to buy a bogo tee, and I didn't know my size, I'd take a shirt that fits me, and measure from shoulder seam to shoulder seam for shoulder width, pit to pit for bust then x2, and bottom of collar to the bottom for the length.

The reason you multiply the bust by 2 is because some sellers will have chest circumference listed on their chart, so to get your chest circumference just measure pit to pit and x2.

Example here

What is shipping going to cost?

Shipping works a bit differently than you're probably used to. You will pay a small fee (5-10yuan) for shipping when you first order the item. Then, once your agent has all the items and weighs them, you will pay them for the final shipment of everything from them to you. It is not uncommon for a $150 haul to cost $50 to ship. Keep this in mind when you are budgeting your order.

Some agents will offer a service called rehearsal shipping. Rehearsal shipping is when an agent will reweigh your package (for a small fee) to get you the true exact weight. If you feel as if your package weighs too much this is a great option to add on.

What shipping option should I choose?

There are 3 main shipping options that are frequently used by the FashionReps community and are considered the "go-to" options.

• DHL - Fast shipping times (average at 3~7 business days) DHL is great for EU packages as it tends to have a lesser seizure rate. US can use DHL too.

• EMS - Fast shipping times (average at 5~9 business days) EMS is great for US packages.

• China Post - Slow shipping times (average 15~30 business days) China Post is great if you're looking to ship for a low price and are fine with your items taking a while to arrive.

But, OP I want hype shit.

I know, me too and so does everyone else who is new to /r/FashionReps. As a general rule, get all the basics before you get any hype. If you wear too much hype or wear hype shit before you figure out how to match and create a good outfit, you'll look bad. I know it's tempting to just put on a full Supreme outfit but you will look like an idiot.

However, I can't stop you from needing to satisfy your itch for cheap hype. Start with just tee shirts. Seriously. With stuff other than tees (jackets, pants, embroidered items, etc.) there's a lot more that can go wrong and you don't have a trained eye for details yet. It will come with time and with looking at posts on this sub.

Nelly offer a variety of basic wear and is one of the best sellers to go to for non-hype streetwear.

CWhat has a great selection of clothes that are low-key and aren't shouting out "Hey, look at me I wear high end streetwear!"

Trusted Taobao Store List you can find a large variety of sellers who offer a large amount of clothing brands here.

But I want a Supreme BOGO hoodie!

Currently there are a few top sellers that offer the top batches for Supreme BOGO Hoodies! Luckily, I've done the research for you so here they are

Kingshark is definitely on the top of the game right now with his quality.

Mirror has been a long time seller in the /r/FashionReps community and definitely is up to par with Kingshark quality.

Teenageclub offers a decent variety of Supreme BOGO Hoodies from the other sellers listed above.

Okay, I've got some basics and I looked at Nelly, Cwhat, Kingshark, etc and they don't have X. Where do I get it?

The easiest way to find a specific item is to use the Search Bar on this subreddit. Check out links, reviews, etc. If you don't see it, your instinct is probably to create a new thread and ask for links. Please don't do this until you have already tried to find it for yourself. It is so rewarding to hunt down and find an item that no one has posted before. It also helps keep the front page of the sub unclogged with repetitive posts.

As you know, TaoBao is mainly in Mandarin Chinese. So typing in "Supreme red tee shirt" won't get you too far. So we use a function on TaoBao called the reverse image search. Here's a nice simple guide to using reverse image search by our mod /u/mikeygigs18. Only addendum I make to that guide is that sometimes to change TaoBao to "Mainland China" it's in the upper left corner of the page rather than the bottom bar.

Where do I go from here?

Here's a good post from /r/streetwear that lists a lot of guides you can check out to keep expanding your style and trying out new fun stuff.

That's all I have for now. Please comment with any questions, I'll be happy to help. Let me know if there's anything I should add to this guide but keep in mind the point is for it to be simple.

One more thing, if you are mad or frustrated with the state of the community, the influx of new users, people being mean, whatever, just remember that we're all here for the same reason. We want to look good for the low. So just chill and don't be dicks.

Also, if you comment with a question and no one replies then your comment is being hidden because you are on a reddit account with not enough karma. Go participate in some discussions in other subreddits to build up a little so you can post and comment here.