• The New York Times , Thursday, October 23, 2008 10:45 AM

While Sarah Palin's handlers's $150,000 shopping spree on her behalf at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus makes the front page of the main section of the newspaper this morning, entirely different types of clothing are featured on the front page of the Style section: (mostly) blue-collar brands that are built to last.

We're talking about Hanes undershirts and briefs, Woolrich flannel shirts, Filson tin cloth jackets, Barbour foul-weather gear, Alden cordovan shoes, Champion gym shorts, Pendleton shirts, Carhartt jackets, L.L. Bean's Camp Mocs and plain old carpenter pants replete with a loop for a hammer. (There's a joke to be made about everything looking like a nail nowadays, but it's too early in the morning.)

"There are things that are perfection in their genericness," designer Michael Bastian phones in from Umbria, where his riffs on traditional American fashions are manufactured. "I'm not going to touch them. It's like Coke. You can't improve it. You win."

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