• New York Times et al, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 4:12 PM

It was only a matter of time, many would say, before Google turned the fashion business on its head -- but who knew fashionistas would take it so well. Many, in fact, are participating in Google's new shopping hub, dubbed Boutiques.com, which lets anyone -- from Oscar de la Renta to the Olsen Twins to your kid sister -- operate working ecommerce sites.

Looking at Google and its culture from an entirely unique perspective, The New York Times' queen fashion critic Cathy Horyn calls Boutiques "a deliberate collision between nerds and fashion mavens." Horyn, for her part, believes that Boutiques "significantly improves how fashion is presented and sold online," and "may also change how people shop for clothes."

The Next Web says Boutiques "screams 'experiment.'" Fortune says Boutiques is "unlike anything Google has done before," noting that the site is entirely free of advertising and Google branding, and features big, beautiful imagery. "Boutiques.com is certainly a different direction for Google, whose ecommerce and shopping options have not been much to talk about," notes TechCrunch.

According to Horyn, however, Boutiques' "utimate game-changer" is how precisely it analyzes users' preferences to give them what they requested. "As two experienced online shoppers found when they tested the site earlier this week at Google's New York office, if you ask for cobalt blue shoes, you get them. And if you refine your preferences with a click or two, you get even more specific styles."

As CNet notes, Boutiques was made possible by Google's acquisition of the technology and product team behind visual search engine Like.com. And as CNet is told by Munjal Shah, co-founder and CEO of Like, Boutiques' design was inspired by the fact that, with "soft goods," discovery is as important as intentional search -- if not more so.

Read the whole story at New York Times et al »