Welcome to Style Detective, a series from T Magazine. Each month, we’ll investigate readers’ questions regarding the items and objects they can’t stop thinking about — and can’t track down. Subscribe here and click this link to submit your own questions.
“The musician Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) recently married his longtime creative partner, Alan Wyffels, who wore some cool boots to their wedding — almost like double-decker-soled Blundstones. I’m wondering if you could help me find out what they are. Thank you!” — Kiki, Salt Lake City, Utah The nice thing about queries from the recent past is that one can go straight to the source. To track down Alan Wyffels’s boots, which I originally assumed were from Visvim or Bottega Veneta, I reached out to the P.R. agency that represents Mike Hadreas, who released the album “Glory” last March (with an extended version coming out later this month). Wyffels, I was told, was particularly thrilled that someone appreciated his choice of footwear. Then the couple called me from their home in Los Angeles to discuss. Hadreas met Wyffels in 2009 at a nightclub. As they describe it, Hadreas was leaning drunkenly against a wall when a mutual friend suggested to Wyffels (who’d been sober for around six months) that the musician known as Perfume Genius could use some help. The pair started hanging out and collaborating artistically. At the time, Hadreas was working on what would become his 2010 album, “Learning,” consisting of songs he’d recorded alone at his mother’s house and had never performed for an audience. Wyffels, a classically trained pianist, arranged the music for the two of them to play live. Hadreas says he fell for Wyffels instantly. But since it’s often suggested that people trying to get sober should abstain from dating in early recovery, their mutual affection was left unspoken for quite some time. According to Hadreas, “We were both kind of in love, but were trying to be good for ourselves and each other.”
Following a string of critically acclaimed Perfume Genius albums (many of which address Hadreas’s journey to sobriety), in 2019 the couple moved from the small house they shared in Tacoma, Wash., to California. Wyffels admits that his eventual decision to propose wasn’t all that romantic. “I didn’t want to get a ring because we don’t really wear them, but I found a necklace that I thought was appropriate and was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this,’” he says. “Mike was getting out of the shower, and I got down on one knee. He thought I was doing lunges. Mike said yes, and then we didn’t do anything after that.” Four years went by and no plans were made, but Wyffels says he felt a new sense of urgency in the current political climate. “I thought, ‘This might not be something that we can do in a year or two.’” Wyffels booked an appointment at a Los Angeles courthouse in May 2024. The couple’s only guest was the choreographer Kate Wallich, a friend and collaborator. Hadreas says that if she hadn’t been such an eager photographer that day, they might have no pictures of the ceremony at all — and in turn, no query from Kiki. For the occasion, Hadreas and Wyffels wore pieces they already owned. Hadreas chose a two-piece suit from the Stockholm-based label Hope, pairing it with black loafers from the Yasuko Furuta-designed Japanese label Toga. Wyffels opted for a pair of pants by Acne Studios that he’d had “for years,” and a Helmut Lang blazer he found at Nordstrom. For a bit of height, he wore a pair of square-toe boots with chunky rubber platforms that he’d bought from the Swedish brand Eytys during Covid-19 lockdowns.
Your suspicion that Wyffels’s boots might have been from the Australian brand Blundstone was apt. The company is most widely known for its Chelsea boots, a style of ankle boot invented by Queen Victoria’s bootmaker and patented in 1851, with inserts of stretchy elastic on both sides so its wearer can easily slip them on and off without securing buckles or tying laces. Like many Blundstones, Wyffels’s Eytys boots are crafted in a butterscotch-y shade of leather, but they depart from more classic styles in the severity of their squared-off toes, as well as through a stamped texture that mimics snakeskin and through those vertiginous platforms. Wyffels considers himself a smart shopper, but he admits that the boots were a rare splurge at $580. According to him, however, they’ve generated lots of positive reactions. “I got my money’s worth,” he says. Unfortunately, the exact pair he wore were a limited colorway and are no longer for sale. However Eytys does currently offer the boots in black leather. The British company Dr. Martens sells boots in a shade of brown much closer to Wyffels’s, with a smaller platform and price tag. Or you could always follow through on your double-decker idea and have a cobbler add platforms to a pair of boots of your choosing, which would likely cost about a couple hundred dollars.
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