On the subway home this afternoon, I observed a teenager carefully touching up the arrangement of the laces of his Timberlands. Loops of the laces had been deliberately pulled forward from the eyelets and then pinched at the corners, to form double triangles, two sets on each boot, that pointed toward the toe. The laces were thus rendered utterly nonfunctional. In fact, the integrity of the double-triangles design was at the mercy of any flexing of the boots, which would tug it into disarray. It looked like a quixotically high-maintenance fashion. But the teenager didn’t look like a dandy otherwise, so I’m guessing it’s a new style rather than just a quirk.