Gift Guide 2011 – $100 and Under

Monday I covered my top Holiday 2011 picks under $50.  Today we’ll step the gift guide up a notch and take a look at some options in the $50-$100 range.  This is pretty much the sweet-spot where you can find some really great stuff that won’t totally break the bank.  For the really big stuff you’ll just have to wait until Friday.

So this isn’t a unique recommendation by any means.  I admit it, not my idea.  But you have to admit that even after a few months of being everywhere, and I mean everywhere, on the internet this pocket square looks no less appealing than on the day it first showed up.  I was lucky enough to get one as an early present last week and I’ve been choosing my jackets around it for days.  Tough to decide whether that’s an endorsement or not.  Drake’s website has them in eight colorways, almost all of which are tempting.  I went with blue/olive edge, but the yellow/orange edge, and purple/orange edge would be my other two recommendations.

The last thing anybody wants this winter is to have to choose between pulling on an ugly pair of snow boots or ruining their Edward Greens.  Life’s tough, right?  SWIMS happens to make some of the slimmest, least-hideous overshoes on the market to solve this pressing  first-world-problem.  A ton of places carry them, and at about $100 they’re the sort of thing most guys keep putting off until later.  But then when they need them most they’re still on a shop shelf instead of in the closet.  Shrine Haberdasher’s Royal Blue and A Suitable Wardrobe’s Dusty Olive are my two favorites – trying to match something like this is a mistake.  Let them do their own thing and you’ll look just fine.

Anyone who reads Simply Refined regularly will know I’m a big fragrance guy.  Hands down one of the best things about this time of year is all the smells you don’t get year-round.  Buying cologne or perfume for someone can be shaky territory unless you know what that person likes.  And no, “I kind of have an idea” doesn’t count.  Candles are terra firma though, and you can get something top-end for just over $50 (or even a little under).  If we’re talking rich, masculine scents for winter (which we are) DL&Co’s Opium Den, Miller Harris’s Feuilles de Tabac, Ormonde Jayne’s Ormonde Man, and Cire Trudon’s Spiritus Sancti are all good choices.