On Tuesday, during its cruise show in Biarritz, Chanel introduced a creation that was not so much a shoe as a sh—. Not a sandal but a san—. Just small bits of leather cupping the model’s heels, held in place by angel-hair straps tied over the instep. The model’s feet, from about mid-arch to the toes, were left naked to feel the plush ivory carpet on which they walked. I am sure they were thankful it was not a stark cement floor.

Chanel said the designer Matthieu Blazy “wanted to evoke the down-to-earth feeling of a woman coming out of the beach or the sea.” The result was, it said, “shoes that almost look like jewelry.”

Indeed, this design is gossamer to the point of becoming a metaphysical paradox. (I believe it was Freud who went mad positing when does a shoe stop being a shoe, right?) But really, these heel caps represent irrational, nonsensical luxury at the highest tier — shoes made for feet that never touch the ground. Maaaaybe these are for your private spread in Capri, not the lowly public beaches of Delaware. Also, these shoes — if they are produced, of course — provide the rich with a chance to show off their Chanel-caliber wealth, even while barefoot.

As stunty as these shoes are, it’s worth pointing out the extent to which fashion brands are reconsidering what a shoe can be and how to charge money for less and less coverage.

What is the success of Margiela’s cloven Tabi boots if not a testament to the fact that people want to turn their lower extremities into an alien form? We’re in the shadow of the Row’s $890 jellies and Alaïa’s $990 fishnet flats. It goes on. This spring, JW Anderson is selling flip-flops shaped like a Monstera leaf, and Balenciaga’s got a platform thong in satin.

Chanel has deduced that you can’t add to a shoe to make it extraordinary anymore. To cut through, you have to strip it all away. Or, I guess, strip it half away.

Fashion’s Most Insatiable Collector

A retrospective is opening today at the Design Museum in London on the A Bathing Ape founder, current Kenzo designer and world champion collector of stuff: the Japanese designer Nigo. When the museum first contacted me about the exhibition, which encompasses more than 700 artifacts, largely from the designer’s archive, I thought how could that be? Over the years, Nigo has had several highly publicized auctions of his holdings. Turns out, there was always more. Here are a few highlights from the show, which runs until October.

The custom denim jacket was made by Levi’s for Bing Crosby. As the story goes, Crosby was turned away at the Vancouver Hotel in 1951 for wearing denim, which was deemed déclassé. Smelling a PR opportunity, Levi’s made him a denim tux, which Nigo later bought and wore.

Growing up in Japan, Nigo was smitten by American musicians like Buddy Holly. He would later remake his version of Holly’s blocky-block eyeglasses and purchase a signed copy of the singer’s high school yearbook.

What’s notable about this 30ish-year-old sweatshirt, an early design for Nigo’s Bape label, is that it’s produced by Camber, a manufacturer in Pennsylvania. It’s a testament to how Japanese designers often hold American-made clothes in higher regard than many Americans do.

Ask Vanessa

Does my handbag need to match my shoes, my coat or what? Does that rule even matter anymore, and if so, where and when does it apply? — Madeleine, New York

The “matchy-matchy rule” — which is to say, the idea that you should match the color of your handbag to your shoes or your outfit — is a sort of postwar, midcentury-modern (or not-so-modern) trope, originally sold as an easy hack to demonstrate sophistication and attention to detail. Read more.

The Japanese T-shirts so many of you wanted to know about are …

A number of you have written to ask about the T-shirt in the photo illustration at the top of my article on Japanese designers. Unfortunately, that was just an illustration. Sorry!

If you are looking for something similar — a heavyweight tee with a sturdy neckline — the Uniqlo U T-shirts are close. As are those from Lady White Co. and Velva Sheen. My advice. though: Try eBay. I’ve found the bulk of my shirts by searching “vintage deadstock white T-shirt.” Simple white tees are ones of those things that were made better back in the day.

Steven Patrick Lynch made Madison Ashley Greco laugh when he walked up to the counter at Anderson’s Frozen Custard in Tonawanda, N.Y., where she worked as a cashier, in January 2019.

“What would you recommend: the roast beef or the lemon ice?,” Lynch asked her, knowing he would order both.

“Well, one’s a dinner, and one’s a dessert,” she responded.

She already thought he was cute when he walked into the ice cream shop, but when he started ordering, his humor won her over. After Lynch paid with his credit card, she took notice of his name at the bottom of the receipt.

Greco went home after work that night and couldn’t stop thinking about him. She managed to find his X account and followed him. A few minutes later, he sent her a message: “Wow, I’m impressed.”

They had their first date five days later at the local shopping mall, walking around and people watching. “By the time we knew it, we were lapping around the mall for three or four hours,” Greco said. Two months later, he asked her to be his girlfriend.

At the time, Lynch, now 32, was about a year sober, and Greco, now 26, was supportive of his journey.

“Instead of going to the bar and getting a beer, I would just go to Anderson’s and get a custard,” he said. “It was awesome seeing my girl and visiting her at work.”

They soon discover an unexpected connection. They both had grown up watching wrestling with their siblings, and they even realized that they had been at the same World Wrestling Entertainment “Armageddon” event in Buffalo in 2008, when he was 14 and she was 9. But both had drifted away from the sport for years.

They rediscovered their love for wrestling, and in March 2020, they went to their first WWE event together. It was one of their last public outings before the Covid-19 pandemic. By June, they had moved into an apartment together in Buffalo.

“Being home and having so much more free time, we picked up where we left off as kids with watching weekly,” Lynch said. “Every Monday night was ‘Raw,’ Friday night was ‘SmackDown.’ Now, Tuesday, they have ‘NXT.’”

They also rewatched old events they were nostalgic about and got into wrestling reality TV shows, like “Total Divas,” “Total Bellas” and “Miz & Mrs.”

They love the theatrics of WWE.

Lynch, who graduated from Niagara University with a bachelor’s degree in sports management, always loved sports. Greco, an independent house cleaner, has always been a reality TV fan. “It’s kind of a meshing of the two together,” Lynch said of their interests. (He now cares for his grandparents full time. They had invited him to move into their home when he became sober.)

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]

At the 50th birthday celebration of Greco’s mother in Rincon, Puerto Rico, in October 2024, Lynch, who had said he couldn’t be there because of work, surprised her on the last day of the trip with a pear-shaped diamond ring by Neil Lane, the jewelry designer for “The Bachelor,” a show she loves.

Shortly after the proposal, in January 2025, Lynch was diagnosed with a bladder cyst and underwent surgery to remove it in April. He was out of work for four months. “I had enough to pay all our bills and make ends meet, but definitely not enough to pay what most people are paying for weddings these days,” said Lynch, adding that they otherwise “definitely would have started saving for a wedding and making plans a lot sooner.”

But that turned out to be “a minor setback for a major comeback,” he said.

The “major comeback” came on April 16, when they were married in Las Vegas by Michael Mizanin, better known as The Miz and Greco’s favorite wrestler.

After spotting a post on X about getting married during WrestleMania, the annual professional wrestling event, Greco applied. About two hours after she submitted an application on a Thursday, she received a phone call explaining that they were selected to be married the following Thursday. They immediately began scrambling to book flights.

The ceremony, organized by ESPN and WWE, was held in a wrestling ring set up at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, where 16 friends and relatives cheered as The Miz led the ceremony. Kalin Ivanov, an ordained minister at the chapel, signed the marriage license.

After the ceremony, the couple had an impromptu celebration at In-N-Out Burger before hopping from casino to casino, Lynch wearing a WWE belt the entire time. Greco had proposed back to him with the belt in January 2025. “He deserved his special moment, too, because he blew me away with our engagement,” she said.

Lynch fully embraced the excitement of the moment. “I just felt like a million bucks everywhere we went,” he said. “I thought, ‘I am the WWE champion.’ I had my belt on. I had my dream girl on my arm. And we just got married.”