The Choosy Beggar

Since arriving on Bond Street in late ‘08, Billy Reid has quickly established itself as a bastion of southern charm and effortless style. The two-story refuge, which reflects the designer’s own taste for dressy-casual style and vintage Americana, features ceilings covered in salvaged doors from a Mississippi schoolhouse, and antique apothecary cabinets shipped from a dry goods store in Montgomery, Alabama. Clearing filling a void in menswear, Reid’s refined yet down-home aesthetic just won him GQ’s “Best New Menswear Designers in America” award for 2010.

Together with Herald Square and Time Square (shiver), Lower Broadway is perhaps the city’s least pleasant shopping districts. Making it all worthwhile is Uniqlo’s 36,000-square-foot, tri-level flagship. Hands down, this clever Japanese retailer is producing the best “fast fashion” on the market, today.   Its +J collection, designed by Jil Sander, is regarded by many as the most successful collaboration ever between the purveyors of high- and low-fashion — if you define success as clothing stripped of its high cost, but not its integrity, with regard to quality or vision.

Despite the tourist throngs and aggressive ground-floor perfumers, Saks remains a top resource for many well-healed gents. At lunchtime or after work, its central location and high-end offerings make it ideal for busy white-collar workers, as well as those in search of the latest designer trends.

Its collaboration with Thom Browne notwithstanding, Brooks Brothers doesn’t subscribe to the fancies of fashion trends. When this conservative institution “innovates,” it usually relates to quality, simplifying existing designs, or going into its archives for inspiration. What critics call stodgy and stiff, devotees consider classic and confident.

Once indistinguishable from other purveyors of prep, J. Crew has emerged as perhaps the most interesting (mainstream) brand on the market. Bolstered by myriad collaborations with brands like Mister Freedom and Mackintosh — and textile mills like Thomas Mason — chief exec Mickey Drexler and design director Frank Muytjens have spearheaded a triumphant return to quality, a masterful mixing of “high” & “low” style, and (refreshed) classic design.