Inventory Makes All the Right Choices for You THE HEIGHT OF STYLE is no style, to dress like you did not bother to get dressed at all, like your closet consists of exactly one perfectly fitting T-shirt, one broken-in but quietly tailored pair of jeans, one chambray or denim shirt that looks as if you lifted it from your grandfather's closet, and not much more. There is the honest way to acquire such a wardrobe, and there is the Inventory way, which is just as noble. It doesn't matter if the choices are made for you so long as they're the right choices. Recently opened on once-punk Extra Place, Inventory is an expansion of a Canadian store and magazine, and specializes in not attracting much attention. The store is modestly sized, carries only a handful of brands and emphasizes basics, so long as your conception of basics includes aggressively priced re-creations of vintage work-wear and Americana styles. It should be said that there is no bliss in nostalgia, no sense in craving a better-designed past. Inventory's choices are about streamlining, not looking backward, even if some of the best pieces in the store are from The Real McCoy's, a Japanese company that remakes vintage American military garments, among others, stitch for stitch. The heft of its jet-black CPO shirt was daunting ($289, on sale from $385, or if you're looking at the other price tag, ¥21000), but the company also makes modern-fashion takes on camouflage seem like paltry revisionism. This brand, like most of the ones carried here, are about designers who have made careful choices and stuck by them. Not only does Inventory celebrate them on the racks, but also in its magazine, a sturdy perfect-bound tome that treats Americana brands and the Japanese companies that ape them with the vivid lushness of Vogue photo shoots, with glamour shots of behind-the-scenesters like Maurizio Donadi and Takashi Tateno. Inventory's Web site, a triumph of minimalism, is an extension of that affection: plain product shots on off-white backgrounds. And the store did its best to emulate it. Brands are segregated in clusters on the racks, and everything is folded with hard right angles so as to live seamlessly with the magazines (Grind, a Japanese fashion rag; The Plant, the nicest plant publication you'll likely ever see) and photo books, like Anthony Hernandez's happily tacky "Rodeo Drive, 1984." Every time I moved something on a hanger, or one of the sweaters on a display table, it was meticulously restored to its original perfection moments later by a staff member. I brought my friend (we'll call him Laird) on this expedition. Last time he joined me, he had just been on a surfing adventure. This time he was happily wearing sea-blue linen, as if he couldn't bear to leave the water behind. The heat was unbearable, but he had a cool sheen. Why he was immediately drawn to a stand-collar jacket I can't say. It was by Needles, and had burned-out holes above the placket where the buttons sat ($395). Tight in the body, and stiff, it had a glamour prole look. All that was missing was a Little Red Book peeking out of the side pocket. He also wanted a thick, excellently cut white T-shirt by The Real McCoy's ($100), only to find it came in two sizes, the one that was too small, and the one that wasn't in stock. Such are the struggles of over-determination. But still, almost any combination of pieces in the store could have made a strong outfit: one of the gorgeous utilitarian ball caps by Ebbets Field Flannels, in cotton and wool ($50), matched, say, with the unstructured black knit blazer (a "cricket jacket") by the fastidiously detailed but ludicrously priced Nigel Cabourn ($600, on sale from $800); a white chambray shirt by the Japanese company rSlow ($245) and, assuming you see shorts as an acceptable wardrobe choice, the worn-in beige shorts by Sassafras ($275), another Japanese clothier; rounded off with some Yuketen oxfords with saw-toothed soles ($315, on sale from $525), made especially for Inventory. An Engineered Garments work shirt in a thick oxford cloth with lavender stripes that could have come from Brooks Brothers ($185) caught my eye. It fit perfectly, as did a Margaret Howell heathered green cashmere-linen blend sweater ($315, on sale from $525). Always in need of perennials, I got them both. Some tepid suede Converse lowtops ($90) aside, there were essentially no missteps to be made here. Even as the clerk was ringing up my purchases, filling out my receipt by hand and packing the items in individual string-tie envelopes, the Engineered Garments shirt and the Margaret Howell sweater sat atop each other in complementary bliss, answering each other's questions. I've been writing this column for three and a half years, and I've written about more than 80 stores. If you were doing the job with any sense of poetry, Inventory - or a shop like it, maybe C'H"C'M" - would be the last store you wrote about. The quest would be over; you'd have somewhere to shop for time eternal. Pick up your essential pieces. Hit send on the column. Drop the microphone. Where's the fun in that, though? Inventory New York 12 Extra Place, (212) 420-8900, stockroom.inventorymagazine.com. The Blueprint Inventory is a store with an idea: understated basics, verging on anonymous, identifiable to only the most advanced connoisseurs as high-end. Decoded Can't afford the store? Inventory makes a magazine that's easy to salivate over, with lavish treatment of modern work-wear brands and the men (generally, it's men) behind them. Watch the Throne Shopping the store is like shopping the Web site. Rigor rules the day, and items are presented as deeply loved totems, in as unmolested a fashion as possible.