If ever you were looking to strike the right balance between rugged and refined, there’s no time like fall to really take care of business with the best men’s style essentials. And for my money’s worth — as you know if you scour The Style Guide for the best fall style picks on the daily, few designers do that better than Todd Snyder. The Iowa-born designer takes the classics and upgrades them in ways that make them work in both NYC and back in the Midwest, as with the handsome, well-made Todd Snyder Guide Shirt.

It’s the perfect example of the, well, rugged-meets-refined look championed by the brand, and that makes the Todd Snyder Guide Shirt a unique addition to your fall and winter layering. The key is the soft-yet-dependable blend of virgin wool, acrylic, polyester and other fibers (for comfort and stretch) into one seriously cool, stylish fall shirt meant to be layered up as one of the best men’s shirt jackets. And folks, your new favorite fall shirt jacket only gets better from there.

The Todd Snyder Guide Shirt also boasts retro elbow patches for a neat and distinctive touch — this rugged men’s shirt jacket is less refined than one of the best fall blazers, to be sure, but no less ready for unique layering. That means you can style your new favorite shirt jacket atop a rugged men’s henley as readily as you can use it as another layer atop one of the best men’s Oxford shirts.

It’s cut with a more full fit for fall and winter layering, too. Plus, color options like a rich Blue-Brown Plaid or the fall-friendly Mustard Multi-Plaid certainly give you options. Beware that this Todd Snyder shirt clocks in at a pricey $268, but as with other Todd Snyder menswear essentials, I’m betting that higher price tag will pay off in spades.