AMQ Street Low Canvas Street Low

Low-top canvas sneaks have been a springtime standard for guys since Paul McCartney sported the original Spring Court sneaker on the album cover for Abbey Road. For a look that’s clean, versatile and always grown-up, the canvas low-top (particularly in white) remains the gold standard. Still, the average canvas sneaker, stylish as it may be, tends to feel a bit lacking in the edge department. Enter Alexander McQueen. His answer to the canvas quandary: add leather. Debuting in 2006, his AMQ line for Puma is all about taking classic court-inspired profiles and punking ‘em up with sleeker shapes and a sinister meshing of materials.

The AMQ Canvas Street Low is a prime example. Like the Spring Court’s canvas classic, slimmed down for the runway and gilded for London streets, it takes the basic, tennis-inspired canvas body and rubber sole and adds leather accents in all the right places. The leather Puma stripe along the side is too slick for words. It comes in ultra smooth cream and a super vicious red. And lest forget these are not your father’s sneakers, it also comes with a gnarly silver chain ornament in the shape of a tooth. If the Spring Court sneaker is the Beattles, the AMQ Canvas Street is the Clash. My advice: get the red ones.

Buy: $193