According to the fashion calendar, fall is just about here, which means it’s time to start looking for the perfect pair of shoes to replace your summer flip-flops.

So that you don’t wander aimlessly in the Valley of Last Season, we’ve compiled a guide to this season’s top shoe trends, Frugal Fashionista style.

Paige Muller, this week’s Frugal Fashionista, brings to the column a wealth of shoe savvy. Muller, a Virginia-based fashionista with self-described “Prada taste on a Payless salary,” is the author of Heels Are a Girl’s Best Friend, a blog on the Web site FantasticToe.com, which is all about shoes. She also writes the style-and-beauty blog Hyper Pink.

We asked Muller to explore some of the season’s hottest shoe trends and to find their Frugal Fashionista-worthy counterparts. Here’s what she came up with:

We know, we’ve been remiss—but Frugal Fashionista is back, and we’re ready to bargain shop. In case you aren’t familiar with the series, we ask fashionable Washingtonians to complete a Look for Less-style challenge using either a set budget or major trend. Our fashionable bargain hunter offers his or her take on each look, but it’s up to you, the reader, to decide whether it’s a success or failure.

Here’s the scoop on this week’s trendsetter: At just 18 years old, DC native and soon-to-be Catholic University student Anatole Jenkins has a passion for fashion, which he shows off on his blog, KidGQ. We asked Jenkins to show us several iterations of a trend for men that’s wearable in Washington, not just on the runway.

Jenkins loves the fashion-forward look of straight-leg pants and jeans. “Unlike boot-cut jeans, the straight-leg cut offers a closer fit and can easily be worn to showcase your ankles, which is a huge trend this summer,” he says. As for finding the best fit: “Buy straight legs so they gather a tad around the ankles and fit snug around the waist.” This season, he says, the look is worn best without socks.

Slim-fitting shirts best complement this silhouette, and accessorizing is easy, says Jenkins: “A great hat always tickles my buttons.”

Spring’s finally here, and we’re all ready to ditch winter’s wool sweaters and tights for sundresses and sandals. The key to transitioning your wardrobe to warmer weather is to have a few key pieces that you can pair with great accessories to make it look like you have a closet full of outfits. The perfect place to start? Some statement-making earrings.

For this issue of Frugal Fashionista, we’ve partnered Meg Zatko, author of style blog Dekan DC (it’s naked, spelled backwards!). Because accessories are a huge statement for spring, we asked Zatko to identify several “Frugal Fashionista” worthy accessories, essentially lower priced versions of their runway counterparts.

We love that she chose earrings, one of this season’s biggest statement pieces. They’re perfect to jazz up a plain white tee, and look fresh and summer-y when hair is pulled back into an  updo. Plus, they’re becoming increasingly easy to find at budget prices—shops like H&M, Zara and even Target have had great finds recently.
“While personally I would love to have a chest full of nice jewelry, with the word recession ringing in everyone’s ears it just isn’t logical,” she says.

Zatko compiled three looks, each with high and “low” counterparts. Let’s just say we can’t wait to get shopping!

Most working women spend more hours per day in their 9-to-5 apparel than they do in their pretty going-out frocks. So why is it that more than half of our closets are often dedicated to the latter? Despite the conservative office cultures that often dominate, there’s no excuse for being drab in the daytime.

For this edition of Frugal Fashionista, we asked Kenya Gregory, a DC stylist and budding fashion designer, to come up with an office-appropriate outfit that works for a Washingtonian woman on a budget.

Gregory was given $150 to find a getup worthy of a business-casual office. For the purpose of this exercise, we assumed Gregory was dressing for an average-shaped woman and that she owned a handbag suitable for day-to-day wear.

Here’s what she picked:

For this issue of Frugal Fashionista, we’ve partnered with Kristen Soltis, director of policy research for the Winston Group by day and frontwoman of the local rock band the Frustrations by night.

We’ve caught several of Soltis’s shows and know that her signature red dress spices up the stage, but we also noticed that she was wearing the same thing to every one of her gigs. And hey, half the fun of getting dressed up is putting together a unique outfit to suit your mood.

While scouting the latest spring trends at the recent InStyle and Neiman Marcus preview event, we had the pleasure of meeting Kate Barber, local fashionista and author of style blog Bellwether. Over the past month, we’ve become huge fans of her exuberant style savvy plus her insightful fashion comments, such as one recent post about the history of the J. Crew Collection, J. Crew’s upscale line that has recently made a return to stores.

We naturally bonded over our mutual love of all things style and Washington, and it stood to reason that Barber would make a natural fit for the next Frugal Fashionista column. After all, who better to ask than someone whose blog title means “one that serves as a leader or as a leading indicator of future trends”?

We asked Barrett Evans, a fashionable Arlington resident and former intern for designer Roberto Cavalli, to come up with a trendy yet not too trite Valentine’s outfit. Pink is great, but head-to-toe hearts and sparkles conjure images of Legally Blonde, not a Washingtonian out on the town.

Evans was given $100 to come up with an outfit worthy of a chic date or hitting the town, with the condition that it had to have a Valentine’s-worthy theme.

As for rules, we assumed Evans was searching for something that she or one of her friends would be comfortable wearing. In a new twist, we admitted that the ultimate secret of a bargain shopper is one who can mix luxe with less in the same outfit. So we’re allowing Evans the luxury of wearing both her Theory leather jacket (one of the season’s “it” accessories) and a favorite handbag or pair of simple shoes. After all, a girl has to make use of what’s in her closet—nobody can afford to buy an entirely new outfit for every occasion.

What she picked: