Kamakura Oxford Popover Shirt, $79

In October, assessing the state of the upscale mall Brookfield Place, I eagerly visited the Japanese shirtmaker Kamakura. Departing Kamakura with an Oxford-cloth button-down popover in hand, I was unreasonably pleased with my purchase, delighted to be in possession of a jaunty anachronism, a kinda-sorta polo with Ivy Style to burn. Wearing my shirt, I soon discovered that I had things backwards: Whatever their superficial charms, popovers are fantastically pragmatic in a highly contemporary way. Forget about fussing with all those many buttons. What is the point of them? Say farewell to the sloppiness of shirts untucking themselves above the belt buckle. Why endure their gaping displays of ungainly asymmetry they allow? (A condition especially prone to afflict dudes who tote babes in Bjorns and such.) The popover is the proper shirt of the preppy future.

–Troy Patterson

Blackmore Wagyu Steak, $180 per pound
The description of some of these steaks sounds like the setup for a mockumentary: Cows that graze on a remote island in Japan live on a diet of olives; Wagyu so tender the grading system had to be revised from six points up to nine. Yet these six cult beef purveyors are offering some truly remarkable products that validate their significant price tags (the cheapest: the dramatic $119 tomahawk chop from Snake River Farms). In Virginia, Chapel Hill Farm has resurrected an almost extinct breed of Randall Lineback heritage cows; Belcampo, in California, is spreading the gospel of sustainably raised meat, offering custom-aged steaks from cows that feed on super flavorful grass. So get ready to spend more money for rib eye that is completely worth it.

–Kate Krader