It still tends to be reassuringly expensive - if buying it via the orthodox channels.  Try looking for it within the UK, however, and you might be pleasantly surprised.  A raincoat at £1.99.  A pair of cords for around the same price.  Possibly because, as John Simons told me, 'No-one in England has heard of Paul Stuart'.

The Paul Stuart shoulder more than makes up for the Paul Stuart darts. I've got a thrifted tweed jacket I practically live in in the winter.

if buying it via the orthodox channels.  Try looking for it within the UK, however, and you might be pleasantly surprised.  A raincoat at £1.99.  A pair of cords for around the same price.

Have to say, I've revised my opinion of Paul Stuart somewhat, and would not fall over myself to buy their stuff again.  The cashmere v-neck and a Shetland sweater are both in need of attention.  Their ties are good, though.  You could easily imagine yourself as a New England Congressman or NASA official.  Bit dubious about their Italian connection, although the cords I have are Italian-made - still okay, even after several years wear.  I still prefer Brooks.

I looked in their shop in Madison Avenue a few times, it was a few years ago now and I have no idea if the shop is still there. I never stayed very long or bought anything. I didn’t think the Stuart stuff was particularly inspiring and the quality didn’t seem to match up to the prices.  The place seemed a bit ‘off target’ somehow and definitely lacking in comparison to J Press, which at the time was a few doors further up the street and far more alluring.

‘Always pleasant to hear from an acknowledged expert on all matters sartorial.  But this was a £25 purchase on Ebay on a wet afternoon, not browsing at leisure on Madison Avenue.’

My post wasn’t intended as a comment on your ebay purchase, or the weather, just an observation on the general theme of the thread. Very kind of you but I don’t consider my self as an expert, on anything.

When I went in there - in the mid 90s - my every move was watched by hawk-eyed sales assistants. Maybe I didn't fit their perceived customer profile, but it wasn't at all pleasant being made to feel like a potential shoplifter. I never went back.

Nicked from the Waterhollow Tweed site:

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAUL STUART.... and its connection to the Ivies.
Founded in 1938 by Ralph Ostrove, the company was called Paul Stuart after Ralph's son, Paul Stuart Ostrove.
Its first store was located at 45th and Madison in New York City, and while the company carried its own brand of clothing ("Paul Stuart") it was originally primarily a retail outlet for traditional menswear. In this incarnation Paul Stuart was viewed as a serviceable budget alternative to Brooks Brothers--respectable, but nothing special.
That changed with the arrival in 1951 of Clifford Grodd, who in 1946 had married Barbara Ostrove, Ralph's daughter. Grodd persuaded the Ostroves to focus on their own house style--one that was described as being a distinctive mix of “Savile Row, Connecticut living, and the concrete canyons of New York.’’ That is, an especially American old-money style with British flair.
Grodd championed the two-button suit to distinguish Paul Stuart from Brooks Brothers--still, then, sticking with the 3/2 sack--and took Brooks' sack suits on headfirst, championing deconstructed jackets and suits that were even more comfortable than sacks. But lest one think that Paul Stuart was more casual than Brooks Grodd was a champion of the bow tie.
Grodd also developed the Paul Staurt logo--a picture of Dink Stover sitting on a rail fence at Yale. This was a nicely sly piece of marketing. To many the well-dressed 1930s-ish man sitting on a rail fence was just that--a well-dressed man on a rail fence. But to those steeped in Ivy lore the character was immediately recognizable as Dink, the hero of the novel *Stover at Yale* by Owen Johnson, a book described by H. Scott Fitzgerald as the "textbook of his generation". This logo thus served as a very subtle signal to the Ivy set that Paul Stuart was "our sort of store".
But Paul Stuart was not in the slightest bit parochial. In the 1970s it was one of the first American menswear companies to capitalize on the growing Japanese love for all things Ivy partnering with Mitsui to open stores in Japan.
The Japanese partnership with Mitsui was amicable and profitable, and in 2012 the Ostrove family sold the company to Mitsui, ending its reign as the main American clothier to be in private hands. The company continued to flourish, and in 2019 celebrated its re-launch of its ecommerce site by having its goods delivered in New York City by vintage Packard.
(First posted at WaterhollowTweed March, 2020; update March 2022).