Today’s New York Times contains an disappointing article about the current widespread use of skulls in fashion. Although the paper is right to note the trend, one Izzy touched upon a while back, it fails to give any recent history of the death’s head as decoration, including its use on Nazi S.S. uniforms or its place in the iconography of heavy metal, something the British shoemaker Jeffery West tries to market. The article claims that the skull has largely lost its edge as a symbol, but Izzy thinks its connotations depend upon the sex of the wearer. It’s one thing for a woman to borrow style cues from pirates or Hell’s Angels; she is clearly playing dress-up. But when a man does the same, he is liable to come across as threatening or uncivil, far from a good thing in Izzy’s estimation. As for me, I’ll stick with more traditional cufflinks from Alfred Dunhill.)

In honor of the Miami Vice movie (which, in Izzy’s opinion, makes the terrible mistake of not being set in the ’80s), the New York Times’ Guy Trebay penned an interesting article about the original TV show’s influence on fashion:

When he orchestrated the look of the original show, [the director Michael] Mann was venturing into stylistic territory already staked out by Italian designers, people like Gianni Versace, Gianfranco Ferre, or Giorgio Armani, the man generally credited with introducing the world to the unconstructed suit ? that is, without padding, a lining or internal stiffening. This might be as good a time as any to amend the old canard about Mr. Armani being the inventor of the floppy suit. It was long a staple of Neapolitan haberdashery, developed by tailors sent to London by wealthy patrons to apprentice on Savile Row.

Oddly, Trebay’s otherwise detailed account of the show’s style fails to mention footwear. How can one think of Crockett except in a pair of Espadrilles, like those you’d find at Pretty Green from Red Square Clothing?