You’re right. In order to be the freshest you can be, every once and while, you have to spring for something a little on the pricey side. If you have to, here are the brands you do it with. ( A Series)

Crooks and Castles-

For me Crooks and Castles often times does a really good job of spanning the gap between urban and preppy. They have a wide variety of shirts, jackets, hoodies and hats. If you are just starting to come into your own, and just beginning to enter the world of boutique style clothing, Crooks is a good place to start. Though I do like most of their pieces , I have a few problems with them as well. Some of what they produce seems, for lack of a better word, corny. These days (these days being their fall 2008/winter 2009 collection) they have been a little disappointing when it comes to new design schemes. I find that they use too much script font on their shirts and hoodies. Not to sound like a snob… OK to sound like a snob, “all over” script on clothing (meaning cursive writing all over a shirt) is all over. That being said, I really like like their spring 2009 collection. They have a bunch of new shirts playing off their original Medusa motif. If there is one place that Crooks doesn’t run hot and cold, it would be their hat collection. Every hat on that site hotter than the devil’s dick and for not much more than a regular hat you might find at lids. A particular favourite of mine is the Crooks script hat in teal. Script on a hat is much different than on a shirt in my opinion. Also, the Crooks logo is in a script font so there is not much getting away from that. Like I said earlier Crook and Castles apparel is great way to step into the boutique fashion game just to get your feet wet and acclimated. Just be careful what you buy there as, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could end up looking fairly trashy.