For more independent and small clothing shops, have a look in the smaller street around especially Prince and Spring street.
The first shop I visited in Soho was not a clothing shop at all, but a café/food market: Dean and Deluca. You can find the coffee chain in various places in NY and I thought it fun to visit them since its where Felicity and Ben from the TV series "Felicity" worked. The one in Soho nevertheless is a huge and quite posh food market, with quality food and Dean&Deluca merchandise.
Almost opposite Dean & Deluca you will find the Prada shop. You might remember it from the Sex and the city chapter, when Carrie takes her boyfriend Berger to meet Prada...
The shop is spectacular with two floors and a wooden wave (looks almost like a roller skating ramp) which takes you downstairs.
Even though they did have sales in there, I didn't really find anything for my budget.
Further down the street you will find Hollister, a sister shop to Ambercrombie & Fitch. Also with typical American clothing, although this shops sells more specifically Californian clothing, which means more swim wear and that the sales assistants are wearing surfer shorts and bikinis.
The clothing is generally a bit cheaper and you can find dresses and shirts for around 40 dollars.
Another shop that I found had amazing clothes (and window decorations!) was All saints Spitalfields. I especially looooooooved their dresses, which were earth coloured with asymmetrical patterns.
Nevertheless, this shop was not for my budget as the average dress cost around 250 dollars. The shop also exists in England and comparing the two websites I found out that its much cheaper in there! E.g. a dress that cost 240 dollars in the States only cost 165 dollars in the UK (110 pounds). Further more, they had sales on the English web site, so I would definitely recommend a peek there.
A shop I really like and already knew from the UK and Denmark is Urban Outfitters. Here you will find trendy and colourful street wear, some almost vintage style. The clothes are normally around 50-70 dollars, but luckily they also had sales when I visited the shop.
I bought these monoshorts for 30 dollars (before 58 dollars).
My boyfriend also found a cool shirt and some nice jeans, both for under 40 dollars.
I also bought a pair of boyfriend jeans in the Levi's shop, before they were 80 dollars, but they were on sales for 40 dollars.
