I have no idea how he did it as his ties are sewn in Como rather than locally in Sydney, or so I thought, but Nicholas of Le Noeud Papillon made a version of his striped Mogador silk bow tie for me with the stripes running horizontally the other day. This was above and beyond the call as his material was woven to align in the other direction and he presumeably had to waste some of it to make it the way I wanted, but I will be happy to get it.
Bow ties deserve considerably more respect than they receive, in my opinion, particularly for evening where they resonate with our memories of those tens of thousands of photos of men wearing them with their dinner jackets. Indeed, in the "El Morocco" Family Album from 1937 that a friend was kind enough to send along the other day perhaps nine men in ten are wearing evening clothes and bow ties in Jerome Zerbe's photographs. And though El Morocco's zebra striped banquettes are gone and dinner clothes with them for the most part, knotting a bow tie atop one's blue jacket in the evening may still be the best way to add a touch of elegance to an occasion.
The striped tie in the photo is still in transit but I shall be wearing Nicholas' blue dots on white Chrisanthy design to dinner tonight.
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6 comments:
Bow ties are typically cut in the bias (coupés dans le biais) so rotating the silk square by 45° is unlikely to have made any difference, really. The same goes with ties: you can make them on every corner of the square.
http://davidikus.blogspot.com/
OT:
It appeared that Congressman David Dreier (R-CA-26) was wearing a shirt with horizontal stripes today during the floor debate on the debt ceiling.
He was wearing a tan summer suit with a solid navy tie and a light blue? pocket square (possibly linen). CSPAN is not so good for discerning color/pattern/fabric in 480i on computer screen. Not your normal Hill style to say the least.
I wonder if he's a reader of this site. I'd never seen horizontal stripes on a dress shirt before Will posted his Hemrajani of that design.
Davidkus, if you are cutting a new piece of silk without a selvedge that may be true. But when you take a piece that has already had ties cut in one direction and cut a tie in another, you waste considerable silk.
Shoot Will,
he named this bow tie after you. http://www.lenoeudpapillon.blogspot.com/ (see a few bow ties down)
Will, I just came back from the snow and saw your entry. Thanks for the compliment. You are right about the amount of silk wasted. But it was worth it. A beautiful bow was born.
Davidikus, whilst using some French to jazz up his comment, is not totally correct in this case. Ties are cut on the bias, he is right about that - and some manufacturers cut their bow ties on the bias - but not all. I for one don't. Neither does Charvet. Nor does Tom Ford (from what I have seen to date). You can tell this by putting a magnifying glass to the silk and checking the directions of the warp and weft - or in some cases it is obvious from the line of the stripes.
That is why you commonly see stripes running on the 45 on ties - they cut it on the bias to also give some flex to the silk. But not always on bow ties. Personally I find stripes on the 45 on bow ties a little insipid - but this is just my personal taste.
Lastly, just to clarify, we bring the silks here into Australia first and then cut, sew and finish them here in Sydney. However, some of our ties are hand-made in Italy because the quality of finish there is superior to local production.
I love bow ties! My boyfriend wears one everyday to work. I like the way the black and white stripes look on this one!
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