The Choosy Beggar

At 12 noon today, Ralph Lauren Purple Label and RLX go on sale at sample-sale site Gilt.com. The Beggar has your invite to the member’s only site HERE.

[Picture courtesy of The New York Times]

For all you frame hounds, the renowned Selima Optique boutique is quietly preparing a sale for next week — an event that occurs only once a year, if that.

Details are still scare, but the event will most likely go down at Selima’s Wooster St shop.

Selima Optique – 59 Wooster St at Broome – 212-343-9490 – Map
Selima Optique – 357 Bleecker St between Charles & 10th – 212-352-1640 – Map
Selima Optique – 25 Prince St between Mott & Elizabeth – 212-334-8484 – Map
Selima Optique – 899 Madison Ave at 72nd – 212-988-6690 – Map
Selima Optique – 888 Broadway at 19th – 212-674-8983 – Map

Taking The Cut’s lead, we decided to investigate the “new” Gap, under the reign of designer Patrick Robinson, only to find much of the same dowdy, unfinished, and disposable merch that one would associate with, well, the Gap. This stuff is ideal for beer-runs in rural Vermont, but otherwise useless.

Up and down the hipness spectrum — from American Apparel and Urban Outfitters to J. Crew and Gant — Gap’s peers are successfully infusing new life into their brands, and the business of apparel in general. Why the Gap can’t follow a similar path is, well, just not a conversation we’re going to have right now.

That said, we did find a few redeeming items from Gap’s fall season, chief among them a simple, but well-executed Herringbone blazer for just $88 (above).

Cozy and only the slightest bit dowdy, this jacket would come in very handy on weekend trips, strolls though the park, and other casual affairs. Its solid build, modern cut, and great value closed the deal for us.

Of the Gap’s two khaki blazers, the darker one would also make a smart purchase:

For the next two weeks, Lower East Side men’s shop Bblessing is taking up to 70% off its hipster wares online and in store. [Racked]

Choose from tons of shirts and trousers, but among the outerwear, we dig:

• Opening Ceremony double-breasted suit jackets for $324

• Man of Moods polyester windbreakers now $246

• Surface to Air marble nylon tape windbreakers for $336

Bblessing – 181 Orchard St at Stanton – 212-378-8005 – Map

ACL admires a new microsite co-created by Gant and The Sartorialist’s Scott Shuman featuring his portraits of New Yorkers filling out the preppy gear. … And so do we.

Not long ago, Gant was hard to distinguish from its preppy brethren. But, as ACL notes, the label has taken pains to branch out, to sharpen its edge, and to find its own proverbial voice. That fact hit home the other day when we came across its fall line on the racks. The stuff is just more vibrant.