Mashups of high and low fashion will always have a certain high-concept appeal, but it shouldn’t stop us from distinguishing between a good idea and a bad idea. And high-top wingtips are certainly the latter. Luckily, like pachinko and monster attacks, these unfortunate creations are currently confined to Japan, where they will hopefully remain. (We’re looking at you, Kanye.)

The problem isn’t just the spaceman look of the sneaker half. This is the rare mashup that manages to degrade both sides of the equation. Wearing them in place of actual wingtips would be unthinkable, but they’re too jarring to work as sneakers either. It’s hard to imagine even the most die-hard sneakerheads putting in the necessary time and care to keep the tips properly polished and oiled. After that, you’re left with something that’s more idea than shoe.

On the other hand, they’ll go perfectly with your tuxedo sweatsuit.

LTD Online [via Trendhunter]

-R.B.

The style arbiters at the New York Times’ T Magazine have revealed what was behind the artful dishevelment of recently deceased pundit William F. Buckley Jr.: dressing up was simply beneath him.

Buckley adopted the blueblood uniform of The Millbrook School, the sort of upper crusty institution where the preppy look was born back in the day, they write, and never grew out of it.

“He came from an era and background where if you looked like you spent too much time thinking about clothes, then everything else was suspect,” the great Alan Flusser tells T. “[He was] anti-fashion in the original sense of the term.” Hence the moth-eaten Shetland sweaters. Buckley himself once wrote that if left alone he would “permit [my] standards of personal dress to deteriorate to the level of the downright offensive.”

While the homage was no doubt unintentional, Preppy style was once again back in full force at the recent Premiere Vision menswear trade show. And so Buckley’s style lives on in the form of thousands of pastel-hued polo shirts.

A Style Salute: William F. Buckley Jr. [NYT]

—Staff

Photographed by our fearless lensman, Patrick McMullan.

Dear Spike:

We love the chunky tortoiseshell specs—they bring out the auteur in you. The rat fur epaulettes, not so much. The diamond earring—your call, brother. But seriously, what’s up with the rodent pelt? If PETA sees you in that thing it’ll really be Mo’ Better Blues, and you know how they like to hang around outside movie premieres with their little paint cans.

The leather ball cap also smacks a little too much of a semi-inflated pig’s bladder, if you want to know the truth of it. And we don’t get the super-shiny Moncler jacket thing. It looks like pleather, and probably leaves a nasty rash. And those giant patches they stick on ‘em are hideous. Call up Michael Stipe. Maybe he could give you a lesson in layering.

Oh and by the way—what the fuck is that on the inseam of your pants?

Sincerely,

Your friends at Kempt

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You don’t often hear the “core values” and “Keith Richards” in the same sentence. But we’re always open to new ideas.

Fresh off their Gorbachev campaign, Louis Vuitton has decided to side with another crumbling icon for their “core values” campaign. Other than embodying a kind of boho shabby-chic, we doubt anyone would have chosen Richards as a style icon, but Vuitton sees him more as a lifestyle icon. This pic, photographed by the legendary Annie Liebowitz, captures what seems like a fairly typical moment in Keef’s existence: he is killing time in an anonymous luxury suite, with objects of luxury scattered carelessly around him. And, naturally, the closest object is his Louis Vuitton guitar case, which doubles as an impromptu tea tray.

It’s tempting to read this as another luxury/rock-and-roll tie-in, but LV seems to have more in mind than just that. They aren’t making guitar cases just yet, but they may want you to think of your case as just that, and throw it around in the same way Keith does. After all, luxury has rarely been about being careful.

(Keith reportedly responded to the pic by saying “it looks like a Rembrandt!” We imagine he means this one, which is appropriately shambling.)

-R.B.