Buying inexpensive petite clothing

I have a few lady friends at work and they also happen to be petites and sometimes we ask each other where they usually buy their clothes. Being petite and finding nice casual clothing is a big challenge. I have no clue why most of the Petite clothing looks like its been designed for middle aged women, in addition a lot of them look formal as well. Living here in the silicon valley I've found a few stores and brands that I like and I've found that people notice and do compliment me on my clothes.

Kohls, JcPenney and Macy's are some of the big departmental stores that everyone knows that sell petite stores. In Macy's their home brand charter club and style & co aren't that expensive and they usually fit okay. The only catch with Charter club is that most of the tops also look like they are made for older women. I love the Jeans by Ralph Lauren, its quite a steal if you manage to find it on sale.

Kohls and JcPenney have a decent Petite collection, but I personally feel that anything more than 6P is usually easy to find. I like Croft&Barrow, Briggs and Jones Signature.

Now onto the other stores, for some reason everyone thinks that the Petite Sophisticate in great mall has been closed forever, but that's untrue. The store re-opened last year and petite sophisticate now has more causual clothes as opposed to the usual formal wear they used to carry before. Since its an outlet store its really easy to find good clothes for relatively less price.

But the best price value is usually at discount stores like Ross or Burlington, I personally like Ross when it comes to stuff other than coats or Jackets. Even at Ross smaller sizes are tough to find but still you can find most of the brands you usually find at Macy's in addtion they have certain other brands that I've never heard of but they fit so well. I like the brand Rafaella a lot. I regularly shop at Macy's and under numerous occassions I've noticed that most tops from Macy's end up somewhere in Ross for prices that are under $10. Lot of people aren't comfortable shopping at Ross as they think its cheap, but in reality if you get the same branded clothing for prices that are a lot lesser what's there to feel bad about.

With the recent downturn in economy, discount stores are doing extremely well but even otherwise what's wrong with buying the same thing for a lower price???