The Best Wingtip Shoes Make You Look Like You’ve Got It All Figured Out (Even When You Don’t)

So you want to buy a pair of wingtips, huh? We've all been there before. There's no one shoe I associate more with the everyday trials of adult life than the wingtip (named for the signature wing-shaped broguing shoemakers typically place by the toe). Wingtips are the shoes you invest in when it's time to grow the fuck up. The old faithfuls. Wingtips are for doing your taxes. Wingtips are for mowing the lawn. Wingtips are for picking up your kids promptly from soccer practice. Wingtips are for looking like you have your shit together (even, and perhaps especially, when you definitely don't).

Real talk, the first dress shoes I ever owned were wingtips. My dad and I went to buy them together in middle school and when we went to check out the kind older woman at the cash register looked at him and complimented his good taste. "He chose them," my dad responded, pointing proudly at me (my dad is a great man, with an equally great collection of wingtips). I walked out of the store that day swaddled in my dad's unconditional love and comforted by the fact that had I picked out an absolutely trash pair of shoes my Pops would've been no less proud.

Fuck, I'm about to get emotional. Look, there's never been a better time to buy a pair of wingtips, particularly if you're down with today's new breed of hybrid high-fashion mashups with soles so chunky you could do some serious shit-kicking in 'em. Buy yourself some shoes while I silently cry into my sad little desk-salad. And then text your dads. It's the least you can do.