In the past few years we’ve watched a significant metamorphosis take place within the fashion industry. First, the internet drastically changed the way editorial content is created and consumed, giving rise (much to the dismay of some magazine editrix) to bloggers, a new wave of fashion players. Now, a number of online platforms are hoping to facilitate entry into an even more exclusive fashion club: designers.

Sites like UsTrendy.com, Threadless.com, Infectious.com, and the soon-to-launch FashionStake.com, are some of the many online outlets putting a new spin on the usual fashion career blueprint by making it easier and cheaper for young designers to tap into customer needs, reach buyers, and market and promote their collections.

Beyond providing a space for indie designers to sell their wears directly to customers, these fashion sites help up-and-coming fashioneers produce and fund their collections with opportunities like cash prize competitions worth thousands of dollars. At UsTrendy.com, designers can compete for the chance to turn their sketch into a prototype. The site also lends a hand with promoting designers who already have a collection; a lucky winner might win a runway show at a major fashion week event. At startup FashionStake.com, shoppers can buy a stake in their favorite designer’s company for credits towards purchasing the designer’s clothes. At Threadless.com and Infectious.com, both geared toward fine artists, members can have their work printed on everything from T-shirts to i-pod skins, which are then sold on the sites and through outside vendors. “This is where I see the future of fashion going, fewer major retailers and more unique independent clothing lines,” says Sam Sisakhti, founder of UsTrendy.com.” With financial backers and retail spaces no longer willing to take a risk on no-name designers during this harsh economic climate, indie designers need all help they can get.

Success stories from these sites aren’t hard to come by. “You have to market yourself and your brand and that can be difficult when you’re running the business and sewing the clothing,” says Dee-Dee Shkreli, who signed up with UsTrendy.com in hopes of creating buzz for her retro-girlie line. Since uploading her collection a year and a half ago, Shkreli has earned international customers. UsTrendy.com secured her a runway show at the last London Fashion Week. Cynthia Wells, one of UsTrendy.com’s top rated winning designers, scored a design post at a major India-based fashion company that's currently expanding in the US.

Julia Sonmi Heglund, who has had more than one winning print or illustration on Threadless.com, credits her exposure through the site with landing her freelance work with companies like Nike and MTV. “Threadless is way for artists to publish their work for the world to see,” says founder Jake Nickell. While Verrier designer Ashleigh Verrier, Parson’s School of Design 2004 Designer of The Year and former Proenza Schouler intern, believes designers should utilize any and every outlet at their disposal, she also believes there are some fundamental lessons learned on the long, hard road to establishing a business that winning a contest can’t provide. “I feel like my experience dealing with banks, my education and industry experience provided me with the tools to be fully equipped to deal with the fashion business.”

In addition to making designer's dreams come true, these forward-thinking fashion and design sites are focusing on shoppers and the integral role they believe consumers should play in the business of fashion. Shoppers vote on all designs and offer tips on making the merchandise commercially viable. ”Discussion, feedback, and iteration are all powerful parts of the design process,” says Infectious.com founder Tim Roberts.

If these sites have it their way, fashion’s gatekeepers may soon suffer another blow to their hermetic power, but any real shift in fashion's famously rigid dynamics might not happen overnight. Adjunct professor of Fashion Merchandising Management at the Fashion Institute of Technology Todd Blumenthal thinks these sites offer great resources for designers, but he does stress that a future where industry experts are obsolete is still some time away. “I think you still need those creative forces to help manage the ideas and thoughts. The fashion industry has its experts who make decisions everyday and the truth is maybe you need a balance. Should Kate Gosselin have been on ‘Dancing with The Stars’? America said yes and the judges said no.”