The Necktie Wardrobe, Part 1

A suit-wearing man needs a minimum of about two dozen neckties. About a dozen of those should be solids and semi-solids with textures that add surface interest. Solids make the most flexible neckties because their relative inobtrusiveness makes them amenable to frequent wearing, and they make it easy to complement a pattern in a suit, shirt, or both.

Knitted silk neckties, like the ones shown above from Paul Stuart, are a wardrobe staple in warm weather, and on less formal occasions (their square bottoms make them more casual). Black, navy and dark red are the most useful colors.

Grenadines, which are also knitted silk but in a tighter weave, are more formal than knits. Pictured above, and also from Paul Stuart, they may be worn where-ever a man might wear a lounge suit. Consider black, navy, burgundy and silver.

A few more solids should round out the collection. A man can never have too many navy neckties and an oxford weave solid (shown above in Pacific blue, another useful color, from Ben Silver) should be one of them.

Finally, there should be a couple ribbed solids in steel blue and in charcoal with a blue tint, either ottomans (the latter have a more visible stripe, as pictured above, from Paul Stuart) or twill (below, from Ben Silver).

Tomorrow we'll look at a selection of patterned ties.