Bored with my neckties, let's talk about options

[Tobus]

Thanks, Andrew. Quick question: your first link took me to a 404 error page. Is that site no longer active, or is it just typed wrong?

[Blaidd]

I wouldn’t worry about it. I wear lots of ties like this for work every day. The exception is when I go to a military or Scottish themed event, I wear one of my Marine Corps ties. The other exception is when I went to London a couple of months ago I left all these at home and brought a simple small patterned tie just to avoid any issues.

Here in the UK we do find that many 'fashion' ties, or 'classic' ties closely resemble regimental colours. I don't believe anyone would take issue with you wearing such a tie unless you were claiming to be something to do with said regiment etc (which of course, you won't be). In fact, a close friend of mine recently turned up at a gathering wearing what very closely resembled my regtl tie - he is not military, and the event was non military. He had actually purchased it at Next. I would wear away, cognisant of the above caveat.

[Tobus]

Here in the UK we do find that many 'fashion' ties, or 'classic' ties closely resemble regimental colours. I don't believe anyone would take issue with you wearing such a tie unless you were claiming to be something to do with said regiment etc (which of course, you won't be). In fact, a close friend of mine recently turned up at a gathering wearing what very closely resembled my regtl tie - he is not military, and the event was non military. He had actually purchased it at Next. I would wear away, cognisant of the above caveat.

Thanks for the input from both of you on that. It's probably a moot point anyway. The Tie Bar where I originally bought that bowtie doesn't make that pattern any longer and they aren't interested in reviving it (I asked). Not without ordering a 50-tie minimum as a custom order, anyway. And I'm not about to spend $128 on the regimental tie version, so I think I'll just have to do without. At times like these, I wish I had a time machine so I could go back 5 years and order the long tie version of it while I had the chance.

[McMurdo]

If money is no object then check out Seigo ties I have 2 that I got second hand these are numbered and only produced in lots of 8.

http://seigoneckwear.blogspot.com

https://www.instagram.com/seigoneckwear2018/

[tweedhead]

The other thing I'm appreciating more and more these days is texture. I'm almost to the point where I'm more interested in texture than colour. Knit ties, wool ties, and the like. I'm bored with silk and other texturally-devoid materials. Weird, right?

I'm a big fan of textured ties myself, and that's what I like to play with. It gives you lots of options for visual interest without getting loud, so I have a few observations I've made while wearing them over the past few years.

Knit ties made of silk, particularly the less expensive ones, are very delicate and threads break or get pulled easily, especially if you have rough hands (I'm a gardener by profession so the skin on my fingers, especially in winter when I wear ties most often, is often cracked and callused). They also don't have a lot of body to them and are quite floppy and thin, so they work best with less intensive and looser knots. I stuck with four in hand or the four in hand with an extra loop if I wanted to bulk the knot up. Pulling the knot too tight makes it lumpy because there's little interfacing, so I try to hit a sweet spot where its just firm enough to hold.

I find that wool neckties are best if not combined with waistcoats because the rougher texture works them up and out over the course of the day and you have to stuff it back down, and I hate having to use a tie clip underneath a waistcoat to hold a tie down in place. That's what the waistcoat is for!

A good grenadine tie has a beautiful texture while being sturdy enough to tie comfortably, so naturally they're the most expensive. If you can find one second-hand, I highly recommend them.

[kingandrew]

Tobus, I did indeed mis-type the address. It should read: www.beautiesltd.com

I forgot the "Ltd" part. But luckily the company is still very much in business.

Have fun exploring. I will admit that although I have a large bag of bow ties, I still don't have "too many" and generally pick up a few more each year.

Andrew

[Tobus]

I'm a big fan of textured ties myself, and that's what I like to play with. It gives you lots of options for visual interest without getting loud, so I have a few observations I've made while wearing them over the past few years.

Knit ties made of silk, particularly the less expensive ones, are very delicate and threads break or get pulled easily, especially if you have rough hands (I'm a gardener by profession so the skin on my fingers, especially in winter when I wear ties most often, is often cracked and callused). They also don't have a lot of body to them and are quite floppy and thin, so they work best with less intensive and looser knots. I stuck with four in hand or the four in hand with an extra loop if I wanted to bulk the knot up. Pulling the knot too tight makes it lumpy because there's little interfacing, so I try to hit a sweet spot where its just firm enough to hold.

I find that wool neckties are best if not combined with waistcoats because the rougher texture works them up and out over the course of the day and you have to stuff it back down, and I hate having to use a tie clip underneath a waistcoat to hold a tie down in place. That's what the waistcoat is for!

A good grenadine tie has a beautiful texture while being sturdy enough to tie comfortably, so naturally they're the most expensive. If you can find one second-hand, I highly recommend them.

Good observations, thanks. It's funny - all the knit ties I have were my late grandfather's, and all are wool. They have a couple of moth holes in them too, but I think it gives them character. Anyway, when I inherited them, most of them were tied in a full Windsor knot and left that way. I guess he had trouble getting the knots like he wanted them in his later years (he was 88 when he died), so he just left them tied. I can't bring myself to untie the knots he tied with his hands, so I have left them that way out of nostalgia and respect for him. Wool knit ties do tend to have a lot of friction in the knot, though, and I can see why he left them that way when trying to tie a full Windsor with a knit tie and not have the knot end up the size of his fist! I'd probably need a marlinspike to get them undone, LOL.

The one wool knit tie he left untied, I usually wear in a Four-in-hand knot. I just happen to be wearing it today, in fact (see below).

I recently purchased a silk knit tie, and it's very much like you describe. Floppy and thin and slippery. I think it will call for a loose knot to avoid lumps, so thanks for that tip!

A lot of my vintage skinny ties are acetate. I must admit, I like the way that material ties. It's low-friction without being slippery like silk, and holds a good knot whether loose or tight.

This is my favourite of my grandfather's knit ties. (Sorry, I suck at selfies.)

[OC Richard]

Wow looking at all these ties makes me realise that my taste in ties is really, really boring.

I do have one I bought in the 80s, which I haven't worn since then, that's black with a huge pink flamingo on it.

The ties I actually wear are regimental-style or all-over motifs (West Virginia etc).

My favourite tie, which I don't wear with Highland Dress, has the Bayeux Tapestry on it.

BTW I have to wear a tie at work but it's the issue tie, plain and ugly.

OK I don't want to derail this into a "show us your ties" thread (we've done that, right?) but here's what's in the closet.



Upper row, left to right: random, all-over crest, band-issued
Lower row, left to right: novelty, striped.

Note the tie lower row third from left with a sporran motif.

The maroon & grey tie is for the University of Redlands gigs I do, the Irish themed ones I wear for St Patrick's Day gigs.

[Tobus]

I happened to be lamenting to my wife yesterday evening that some of my ties were just too wide for me to want to wear these days. She got curious about deconstructing one of them too, so we picked a tie and started taking the center stitches out. This is one of my Robert Talbott ties.

I must admit, I was slightly surprised at the construction of it. As you can see below, the silk inner lining only goes up a few inches from the end (and it does it on both ends). Beyond that, it's just the outer silk that's folded over on itself around a canvas core, and tack-stitched at the middle every inch or so. The edges of the outer silk are just raw cut, folded over double.

Altering this tie to narrow it down to 2.5" seems like it will be fairly simple. We can continue cutting center tack stitches far enough to where we want to re-taper it, press it flat, cut the canvas core down appropriately, then mark and fold the outer silk, pressing new creases into it, and stitch the inner silk lining back in by hand after cutting it down as well. I do believe that the re-stitching of the silk lining can be done inside-out easily enough, then turned in and pressed.

The canvas seems very similar to what's used for the internal stabilizers of kilts, but it's just free-floating inside the silk. It's not stitched in at all, and simply adds some weight to the tie. In the photo below, I pulled it out of the 'pocket' between the inner and outer silk. Normally the tip of it just goes down into that pocket.

Seems like a simple project. She has volunteered to do it, as long as I don't put her on a time frame, LOL.

[Tarheel]

I found similar lining tacked only in a few places when I narrowed the tie I described earlier. This may not always be the case, but I bet is usual construction for ties. I'm glad you discovered that narrowing a tie doesn't involve space engineering math.