Another good piece from David Colman, who wrote another article on the American look just a few months ago.

Drawing the line between polish and pretension is trickier, especially when last year’s costume can be this year’s classic, and next year’s yawn. Just consider the steady infiltration of 19th-century haberdashery into the 21st-century wardrobe. Garment after garment has arrived on the scene that one might think more Gilbert and Sullivan than Bergdorf and Goodman, only to be taken up by the young beards…

…Similarly, the look’s most popular components — tweedy vests, woolen trousers, henley undershirts, dark wool ties, scratchy cotton shirts — appear to have an added dose of authenticity when unearthed in tucked-away shops like Amoskeag XX and Against Nature on the Lower East Side, or Hollander & Lexer in Brooklyn. Often they are made in New York by small labels like Engineered Garments and Freemans Sporting Club, Mr. Somer’s line.

There are definitely some pieces in this season’s collections that are pure costume (like Engineered Garments Edward jacket), but things like wool ties and three piece suits are classics.