Shopping in Omaha

By eliminating traditional numbered sizing and adopting a user-friendly color-dot sizing system, Beyourself promotes a positive shopping experience focused on finding clothes that accentuate your shape. Rather than worrying about brands’ inconsistent measurements and complex sizing algorithms, shoppers can put down their graphing calculators and proudly proclaim they're a green, purple, or taupe. In addition to jeans ($40–$170), dresses ($35– $50), basic tees or tanks ($10–$18), and tops ($20– $40), Beyourself offers jewelry, accessories, handbags, shoes, and customized jetpack holsters, so you can fly around town in style.

Miche bags employ a crafty design that creates a head-spinning array of custom options that prohibit bags from cultivating lint farms and spawning legions of pennies. A Miche bag base comes in two sizes (a Miche bag is a standard two-handled purse, while the Miche big bag base is more of a satchel) and can be fitted with a wide variety of striking small or large magnetic bag shells that fit snugly like cocoons of head-turning fashionableness. Boast tartan taste with a plaid Tori design for $24.95 or harness nature’s flair with a Zoe blue piece for $19.95. Additional accessories add practical pizzazz through handles and organizers that leave other spare handbags in the dust on speedy fashion runways.

Each Wild Willy's house of celebrations is fully stocked with a wide variety of incandescently colored explosives for any and all midsummer festivities. Noisemakers can instigate the hoopla with a 36-pack of M-70 firecrackers ($2.50), while military buffs can use the package of sparkler-wielding mini tanks ($0.25 apiece) to re-create the American-Antarctica War's decisive Battle of Dwarfish Artillery. The company also carries 200-gram and 500-gram cakes, such as the Aftershock, from which 19 nebulas of red, green, and gold explode and linger in the night sky. Find firework fountains, sparklers, and artillery shells—all ideal gifts for the Independence Day lover that already has a Bill of Rights leather jacket.

Walking into a HobbyTown USA is like immersing yourself in a science fair, toy store, art-supply shop, and robot dance-off all at the same time. Stocked with items ranging from model Camaro kits ($20.99) to easy-to-care-for ant farms ($14.99), the store has something for any particular age or interest. Spice up the tide of warm weather with interactive outdoor activities such as flying Turbo Jet 2000 gliders ($4.99) or kites shaped like 3-D space shuttles ($19.99), which, unlike real space shuttles, serve decent in-flight meals. For rainy days, you can always just pick up a 10-piece carving-knife set ($4.95) and an eight-color all-purpose paint set ($11.59) to repurpose any banister as a totem pole of achievement.

In 1978, Jan Gauger founded One More Time, where she stocked racks with gently used women's clothes and accessories from labels such as Gap, Kate Spade, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, and Eddie Bauer. To this day, Jan oversees the shop's daily goings-on alongside her daughters Sarah and Kate. They helm a careful consignment process that seeks out items two-years-old or newer, ensuring that shoppers unearth only trendy, high-quality shoes, blouses, dresses, and jewelry. The family's dedication to saving orphaned garments also means that fewer unwanted clothes wind up in overcrowded landfills or layered on uncomfortably warm scarecrows.

Threads-Footloose & Fancy believes in a two-pronged philosophy: its owners are deeply committed to both protecting the environment and to outfitting people of all ages with comfortable, fashionable clothing that help them to achieve a healthy lifestyle. To combine these two passions, the eco-conscious business only carries clothing from brands devoted to using recycled materials, biodegradable vegetable dyes, and environmentally friendly production methods, such as The North Face.

After equipping customers for more than three decades, Threads-Footloose & Fancy has learned to keep up with the latest trends. Recently, they've panned back their eco-friendly and trend-spotting telescope to focus on clothing, too, stocking up on jackets, coats, and outdoor garb from The North Face's Summit Series, Patagonia, Arc'teryx, and Lucky Brand, as well as women's workout apparel from Lolë and yoga apparel from lucy.