Recession? What recession?

iStorez, a startup backed by Norwest Venture Partners, Tuesday rolled out a shopping aggregator that lets users browse according to store promotions or their horoscope or personality type.

The online launch comes as retailers hunker down for a holiday season expected to be muted by a global recession.

iStorez aggregates the results from online shopping search engines, including Yahoo Shopping, TheFind, and NearbyNow, and more than 500 individual brands and retailers such as Polo Ralph Lauren and Gap, and then seeks to tailor the results to the shopper.

Users can choose among shopping personalities like “nifty hopster,” “eco adventuress” and “urban fashionista.” The eco adventuress, or example, is funneled to deals from Adidas, The Body Shop, and retailer Moosejaw.

Women who shop by horoscope can find Aries styles from Chanel and Forzieri.

The site competes against scores of search engines such as Shopping.com, price-comparison programs like Pricegrabber.com, and bargain-hunting sites like Dealnews.com, but also incorporates some social-networking elements. For instance, once users create their “personal mall,” they can share it with friends via a widget.

Anand Jagannathan, the company’s chief executive, is a founder of enterprise networking company Banyan Systems and marketing software firm Responsys.

"iStorez' strong value proposition and exceptional management team are two of the reasons why the company is attracting first-rate partners; the third is the promise of shopping simplified and a more complete consumer experience,” Venkat Mohan, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, said in a statement.