BEST PLACE TO FIND A DECENT BRIDESMAID'S DRESS
BEST PLACE TO BUY LEATHER BAGS
BEST PLACE TO BUY WOMEN'S SIZE 11 SHOES
BEST TOTAL CLEANSING
BEST ADVICE WITH YOUR MAKE-UP
BEST PLACE TO BUY A BEER AND ENGLISH CANDY
BEST PLACE TO BUY A PIÑATA
BEST $10 HAIRCUT
BEST WINE STEWARD
BEST REASON TO TAKE UP BOWLING
BEST LOCALLY MADE CARDS
BEST GUY TO BUY GLASSES FROM
BEST PLACE TO BUY A VINTAGE GUITAR

Best Place to Find a Decent Bridesmaid's Dress
A modern woman's biggest honor--and biggest horror: Your long-lost friend from high school has called from Connecticut to share her news. She's getting married! You WILL be a bridesmaid. You WILL wear pale yellow or dusty pink. Your dress MUST be traditional. If you are lucky, that will be the end of the restrictions. If you are unlucky, you will be given specifics: A-line, fitted, tea-length, floor-length, empire waist, off-shoulder, smock, satin, lace, bows, sequins, shawls, scarves or, have mercy, the train. Head to Charlotte's Weddings (8925 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, 297-9622), and you will find something that fits all these requirements without making you resemble a raspberry cream puff. The dresses are classic and noticeably lacking frills, and the staff will respect your I-didn't-know-my-butt-was-this-big space and hook you up with seamstresses, shoes and accessories. Pink and poofy will never be this easy.

Best Place to Buy Leather Bags
The philosophy of Ellington Leather Goods--"We create bags that conjure up images of Katharine & Spencer"--sounds a bit precious, but the 11-year-old Portland company does produce products as sturdy and sound as Tracy and as flighty and beautiful as Hepburn. It's easy to justify the $200 or so needed to buy one of Ellington's gorgeous leather satchels or overnight bags at specialty stores around the country or from a variety of catalogs, including Norm Thompson. But the best place to get the goods is at the Ellington outlet (8 am-4 pm Mondays-Fridays, 1533 NW 24th Ave., 223-7457). With prices slashed at least 25 to 60 percent below retail, a leather backpack, wallet, organizer and address book are in the range of most budgets. Check items carefully--some have slight, almost imperceptible defects, and others are from discontinued lines. To tempt yourself, check out the goods on the company's Web site (www.ellingtonleather.com).

Best Place to Buy Women's Size 11 Shoes
It's possible to find women's size 11 shoes in Portland, but it's not always easy to find ones you'd actually want to wear. Imelda's Designer Shoes (1431 SE 37th Ave.) not only orders stylish 11s, but if you have a hard-to-fit foot, the salespeople will also take down your phone number and shoe preferences (clunky oxfords, elegant pumps) and call you when they receive appropriate shoes in your size.

Best Total Cleansing
Urbaca (120 NW 9th Ave., 241-5026) ought to get an honorable mention just for its clever name, which combines the Latin roots for "urban" and "pearl." The day spa offers the usual array of services, from lip waxing to mineral wraps--but it also takes into consideration that, after a day of exfoliation and massage, getting into a dirty car feels pretty gross. That's why the spa's grand six-hour package, "The Absolute Urbaca," includes a car wash and detailing, right there on the premises. You and your auto will run better after this treatment.

Best Advice with Your Make-up
Mike Monroe of glam-rock band Hanoi Rocks is the reason Darbey Bacchus Budd entered the beauty business. "He wore make-up really well," Budd says. Transfixed by the power of make-up, Budd got involved in the Los Angeles entertainment scene, did faces for photo shoots and worked for several cosmetics companies, including MAC, Origins, Make Up Forever and Lancôme. Two and a half years ago, Budd began developing products with labs in Florida and New Jersey to create Bacchus, the only line of cosmetics based in Portland. Bacchus debuted at Hickox Salon and Spa (711 SW Alder St., 241-7111) in April and is scheduled to retail at various department stores this fall.

Best Place to Buy a Beer and English Candy
Boasting a large selection of microbrews and a display case stocked with Cadbury candies, the Belmont Station (4520 SE Belmont St.), nestled next door to the Horse Brass Pub, will fulfill not only the beer connoisseur within you but also your desires for authentic British treats. The friendly staff is always willing to help you find the perfect glass in which to properly enjoy your beverage purchase, and many books are on hand to answer any question you might have about the beer. A wall is stocked with microbrews, primarily from England, Scotland (one is brewed with heather instead of hops), Belgium and the Northwest. If there's something British you can't find on the amply stocked shelves, don't hesitate to request a special order.

Best Place to Buy a Piñata
Starting to feel those years creeping up on you with each birthday? Instead of dwelling on impending incontinence and senility (or just tomorrow's hangover), hearken back to those carefree days of yore with a piñata at your next birthday fiesta. Pick up a baseball bat and flail around blindly at a helpless papier-mâché animal filled with treats from The Lippman Co. (2727 SE Grand Ave.). This place has a great selection of piñatas, from pirates to firetrucks to guitars, and any one will set you back only $8.75. Everything you need to fill a piñata is here, too, including tiny plastic dinosaurs, superballs and tons of candy.

Best $10 Haircut
You'll actually look good after a $10 wack at Hickox and Friends (615 SW Broadway). If you're willing to call ahead to tell them that you want to be a hair model (you may have to be persistent), and if you're available to have your hair cut on a Saturday, you'll be offered a swanky salon experience at a barber shop price. They'll give you a robe to change into and will use expensive hair products that smell like the rainforest or cotton candy. Happy customers have reported that after a Saturday at Hickox, boyfriends tell them they look as if they're on Melrose Place. That's not bad for a $10 haircut, now is it?

Best Wine Steward
"Wine is supposed to be fun," says Richard Elden ofBurlingame Grocery (8502 SW Terwilliger Blvd., 246-0711), an affable Englishman whose refreshingly unpretentious attitude has won him fans among wine lovers all over Portland. There are others in the wine trade who share his wit and enthusiasm, but because he works in a supermarket rather than a specialty shop, he has to be particularly accessible to neophytes--such as the woman who asked for a fine zinfandel and then, when he proffered a Caymus, told him it was the wrong color. As his broad selection attests, his tastes range far and wide: "If it's good," he says, "I'll promote it. I don't care where it comes from." A consultation with Elden is the perfect antidote to the buy-by-numbers approach of the most popular wine magazines: "I try to break the Wine Spectator's power.... I'd rather educate than dictate."

Best Reason to Take Up Bowling
Dead air and questionable guys are commonplace at alleys (bowling or otherwise), but there is an antidote available for the fashion-savvy. You could go the custom route and pour yourself into the type of tailored jumpsuits favored by John Turturro's slimy character in The Big Lebowski, or you could pick up some shirts made before you were born at Decades Vintage Company (328 SW Stark St., 223-1177). Decades has a good collection of clean, well-preserved bowling garb for both sexes. Made of heavy cotton, rayon or cotton/poly blends, the shirts hang well and are adorned with a variety of names, stripes and logos of teams past. The cutest styles have box pleats running down the shoulder blades and are loosely banded at the waist. Prices range from $28 to $55.

Best Locally Made Cards
Veteran Portland photographer Frank DiMarco may not be a pharmacist, but he offers a sure-fire antidote to the greeting-card blues. He's been producing the DiMarco line of greeting cards and postcards for 13 years. He depicts familiar local sites and unique slices of life in colorful snapshots and black-and-white prints that are infinitely more tasteful than the usual Hallmark pap. DiMarco trains his camera on a variety of subjects, providing cards for lighthearted, celebratory or somber occasions. One shot captures a beat-up Volkswagen bus with a message painted on its side ("Don't laugh, lady, your daughter might be in here"), while another takes a peaceful autumnal look at Waterfront Park and the Willamette River. DiMarco's cards aren't hard to find; they're available at local stores like Powell's Books on Hawthorne, Balloons on Broadway and the Photographic Image Gallery.

Best Guy to Buy Glasses From
Tim Wardell has no qualms about telling people they don't look so hot in a pair of spectacles. The optician who has managed Prescription Optical (1109 SW Taylor St., 227-3303) for the past eight years has great fashion sense--and a great deal of patience. He'll spend hours helping you pick out frames and answering questions about different lenses. He'll adjust and clean your glasses at no cost any time you stop by. And if you're really lucky, you might even get Wardell to bust out his collection of unworn vintage frames.

Best Place to Buy a Vintage Guitar
Decked out in suede creepers and a pompadour, John Wallace, owner of Premiere Guitars (2009 E Burnside St.), clearly takes his interest in retro rock 'n' roll to heart. When he's not running his tiny shop, he can be caught gigging with the Volcanoes or providing musical ambience for Miss Mona's burlesque cabarets. Whether he's playing or selling, it's always strictly vintage. "I've got nothing new--no digital stuff, no heavy-metal guitars and no synthesizers," Wallace says. Even so, his clientele is quite modern; Wallace's customers have included Pond, Sleater-Kinney, the Lee Rocker Band and Cheap Trick. "I do a lot of business with Gen-Xers since they don't have a lot of money," he says. "I don't have any $5,000 guitars; a lot of my stuff was originally sold through affordable places like Sears and Montgomery Ward." Regardless of price, Wallace is quick to point out that all vintage guitar gear shares one drawback: "It's just like a 40-year-old car: It breaks, you get a new part and you keep going." Fortunately, he also teaches his buyers to fix their own equipment.