Ever since Barney’s unveiled its “Have a Foodie Holiday” windows last November (featuring the crème de la crème brulee of the food world, from James Beard to Jamie Oliver), food and fashion have become the favorite odd couple.

The latest development is the partnership between shoe company Mozo and three fabulous, fashion-forward (and product endorsement-happy) chefs: Marcus Samuelsson, Chris Cosentino and Aaron Sanchez.

For those of us who resisted the Mario Batali/Croc plague that swept our nation, a new nightmare is upon us. The trio has produced a line of kitchen-friendly work shoes for Mozo–but in stark contrast to the unseemly blocks of cheddar Batali let loose upon an already aesthetically challenged world, the Mozo shoes aren’t completely hideous.

Samuelsson, he of Top Chef and Red Rooster fame, designed surprisingly subdued shoes featuring a wee Brooklyn Bridge silhouette on black; Cosentino’s feature superannuated pig-butchering diagrams and a tripe print, but Sanchez beats the rest of the feet with his memento mori skull theme and, natch, Mexican flag shoes.

They go on sale in May, and Mozo is coughing up $10,000 to the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program in the toques’ honor.

Below, check out the Renaissance man Samuelsson’s erudite take on how food, trends and geopolitics are making the world a smaller, friendlier place:

It’s Fashion Week in NYC, and designers and models are stomping all over town in spring and summer 2011 threads. But music makes everything just a little bit sexier, right? Here’s a rundown of bands and DJs playing the jams at fashion events from now through September 16.

Janelle Monae plays the Ralph Lauren show today (free at the SoHo location), while JJ and CEO spin tonight at Oak’s Fashion Night Out after party at Bowery Hotel. The Strokes might pop some collars while playing Tommy Hilfiger’s party at the Metropolitan Opera House Sunday September 12.

Iggy Pop is rumored to be performing at the John Varvatos store, the former site of CBGB (Guns N’ Roses played there earlier this year), and Metric are rumored to be playing the Richard Chai show on Monday September 13.

You don’t care about fashion, you say? If it’s any consolation (OK, it’s probably not) there’s always the MTV Video Music Awards this Sunday September 12. And if you’re feeling a little out of touch with the latest trends, Bridges and Powerlines feel your pain.

As a New Year in a new decade dawns before our still-rheumy red eyes (how many days can a hangover last? Why did we all think those last five drinks last Thursday were a good idea?), let’s Flashion Backward through ye old UI archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear.

Lucy’s most notable commercial success was her 2003 hit “Dumb Girls,” but just as she was gathering steam, Atlantic Records pulled a corporate fast one, merged a bunch of shizzle and showed a roster of promising artists to their gleaming door–including Lucy.

No matter. She grew up singing in jazz cafes around New York for tips and/or a meal, so she probably was never particularly interested in following the typical “crank out a few chart-toppers; get seen at all the right nightclubs in NY/LA; date a bunch of douches; have a sex tape leaked online; suffer a breakdown; enter rehab for drug addiction; emerge and start talking about healing to Life & Style magazine/launch a perfume line” career path most aspiring songstresses stick to these days.

Lucy’s style is decidedly more ephemeral and simultaneously grounded. She sounds like her vocal cords have been sprinkled in lavender fairy dust. She looks like a sophisticated version of what Miley Cyrus’ publicist totes hopes she’ll look like in five years, but she acts like that enigmatic, super-smart, sweet sprite you knew in high school who is just as likely to go for “foreign affairs” as she is to run out and help build an Ashram in Goa, India.

But her kaleidoscope style, music and lifestyle are all part of her charm, right? She’s the CBGB-loving punk next door, the sextress who may or may not bite and the jaw-droppingly pretty smartass who’s always two steps ahead of you.

Below, check out Lucy’s perspective on traveling through passion-infused South America; the importance of holding onto your drunk-ass dance pants for two seconds on occasion; and of course, the joys of salsa-ing your way toward dawn.

A new decade has dawned and Flashion Forward is ready to prognosticate as we gaze at the strange and colorful aesthetic scape fashion and music create when they collide. Let’s frolic about the closets of our fanciest, freshest interviewees and find out if their musical and sartorial styles sing in harmony or clash discordantly.

Today we’re synchronizing with Telepathe.

Telepathe, a startlingly unique avant-garde electro act from Brooklyn, is way ahead of all of us–who better to turn to for thoughts and advice on what to expect in the coming year? Former math-rockers who decided to join forces and ditch all of the boring conventions that can stymie experimentation busted open their doors of expression and now produce the kind of pop that can send anyone into trance. They pour “layers and layers of sound, with girlish vocals woven in as yet another rhythmic element” onto the swooning, sweaty masses, proving that basic arithmetic does add up to a solid foundation one can use for fun things later in life.

Terrifyingly trendy to boot, sometimes it’s hard not to fall under the spell of their “improvised guitar gusts, woodsy chirps, wraith-like Björkian harmonies and powerfully jabbed drums into minimalist baroque.” You’ll be put into the same sort of Pabst-drinking, bad parka-wearing sparkly fog in which we find ourselves wearing purple jeans without a trace of irony.

Best leave it to the experts though. Instead, the rest of us can learn from their rather outré approach to crisis management. Below, check out how Telepathe plans to save us all from ourselves, bears and quicksand.

Ahhh, sookie, sookie: Let’s throw this sweet ride into reverse and Flashion Backward through UI’s archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear. It’s like stumbling onto a time capsule! Today, we’ve discovered reruns from the Lonely H, and they flash further back than I ever expected. Get ready for a groovy ride through the 1960s.

The Washington state-based Lonely H got together in high school, and they’ve managed to play more than 250 shows in 47 states–not bad for a bunch of Port Angeles teens who shamelessly “hoist the geek-flag” and blithely cite musical influences as classic rock as The Eagles without batting an eyelash.

And they definitely look the part, sporting ’60s- and’ 70s-era side-parted, behind-the-ear long hairdos that have clearly never encountered the wonders of Frizz Ease. Plus, they top it off with well-worn bell-bottoms, mustaches and vests–and no palpable irony detected! They are so gloriously, unabashedly unconcerned with the sun-glassed, slicked-back, sad-faced boo-hoo urban hipster movement currently sweeping the nation, you can’t help but love them despite their wildly upbeat, innocently grinning selves!

Below, see their slightly less peaches ‘n’ cream take on getting busy with fans, groupies and other  sundry forms of admirers. Oh, boys.

Ziiiiiiiip up your space suit and get ready to Flashion Forward! We’re diving into fashion’s future with UI’s wacky space/time/fashion continuum through which we frolic about the closets of our fanciest, freshest interviewees and explore the zany cross-streets where aesthetics and sound colliiiiiide!

Today, we’re headed into the realm of Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, a name that sounds like it belongs to someone with the ability to write checks with a buttload of zeros. The only thing that’s missing is a Jr. or a series of Roman numerals after his name–guess he isn’t a WASP after all.

But that doesn’t mean dude can’t sting. Miles’ talent is reportedly as big as his name, size of the venue at which he warbles and strums be damned. The musician’s commitment to his audience is practically palpable at shows and on his well-received records. He’s in it for all of us: Some of his songs are nothing less than a “choir of the damned reach[ing] it’s fever pitch on ‘Written Over,’ a desperate plea for redemption and second chances that gathers a host of rawly unfulfilled voices to shout its titular refrain.”

No slouch in the existential crisis department–Miles is like Camus for the urban hipster set with ennui–he, natch, has the style chops to go with doe-eyed deeper-than-thou and I-could-probably-use-some-Prozac-but-I’ll-take-a-Pabst tortured artisté style we all know and love.

Best of all? He shows serious evidence of a working brain-stem, in addition to a tasty physique and envy-inducing talent. Below, check out Miles’ thoughts on the ugly side of American dream. Maybe our generation’s Camus comes with a guitar strapped to his back.

Let’s throw this mamma jamma into reverse and Flashion Backward through UI’s archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear. It’s like stumbling onto a time capsule! Today, we’ve discovered reruns from the imitable Peter Toh.

A “don’t f with me” New Yorker to the core, Toh has been writing and producing music since middle school. That’s right champ–while you were snapping your Bubble Yum and issuing poorly executed drawings of rainbows, butterflies and unicorns in your diary next to embarrassing revelations about your crush on this total tool Ted, Toh was busting out hip-hop albums.

These days, he’s spending more of his time behind the scenes, working on albums for Lil Mama and other up-and-coming rappers. And don’t you forget it!

In fact, why don’t you just go taking a flying you-know-what while you’re at it, you you you…! OK, so chicks who were born in the Midwest should never try to channel Toh. They’ll just end up sounding like their grandmother Rita who was constantly begging the fam to “pardon her French” when she issued scandalous exclamations like “piffles!” while darning socks or trying to find the glasses that were generally safely stowed in her sturdy beehive.

But really–don’t bother this slightly intense (some might even say intimidating-looking) graffiti-lovin’ bad boy because he will cut you. Or at least totally screen your calls. Below, check out Toh’s rant about people who don’t seem to quite get the concept of “catch ya on the flip side.”