In fashion, aesthetics matter. Blog readers want to see the pretty. PR agencies look for well-designed sites to partner with. Fashion bloggers, by definition, like to dress up and accessorize. In short, your blog should look good.

In Style Sample Magazine issue #3, Michelle of Decline Designs gave us step-by-step instructions for designing blog themes. If you don’t have the time or energy to create your own design, there are plenty of pre-designed templates and themes available online. We’ve done the research and developed a listing of the most helpful places to find templates, themes, and tips for the three most popular blogging platforms:

Blogger Templates

BTemplates is a good old classic offering up options and style.

BlogSpotTemplates provides a nice variety of fun and artistic templates with a clean, easy on the eye layout.

Pyzam has options, options, options! With several categories to choose from, Pyzam helps to point you in the right direction, and where you go with it is up to you!

QuiteRandom offers a mix of some free templates in combination with blogger tutorials.

Blogger Styles definitely scores in terms of variety.  From technical specifics to theme composition, this site is worth taking a glance.

Final Sense is another good site for theme variety and a few extra freebies.

WordPress Themes
ThemeSplice contains hundreds of user-submitted themes sorted by category. The “Fashion” and “Magazine-style” and “Photo Blog” templates work well for fashion blogs.

Top WP Themes has over 100 free professional designs as well as installation instructions and live previews of each theme.

SkinPress has a selection of beautifully designed free themes as well as premium templates. Many come ad-ready and all have demos available.

Smashing Magazine put together a tightly edited list of well-designed free WordPress themes for 2009. The list includes screenshots of each theme as well as a convenient download link.

Free Theme Layouts calls itself the largest collection of free premium WordPress themes, and it aims to deliver. Rollover each screenshot to see a larger version, or click on the demo to explore each theme in full-screen mode.

Typepad Themes
Typepad users might need some extra luck to find templates–there doesn’t seem to be much out there, and those that are out there are very basic. You could try:

UK Blogger’s Guide has a lot of general information about Typepad thoughout their blog.  A lot have to do with modifications but no so much on free templates.

Save a Few Bucks has a bit information about templates in general and points out to a few spots where you get them.

Typepad also offers over 100 basic designs that are customizable if you’re comfortable with CSS.

How did you create your blog? Share your favorite design resources in the comments!