Sett size and bow ties

[MacLowlife]

Careful and judicious placement can sometimes help. You will need 4 "ends"- the 7" or so working part that forms the visible bow. And you'll need just a touch more for the knot- all in one piece, of course, but you may well be able to get those from the fat end of the long tie. I have just laid out a bow tie on top of a long one and in my case, I think it can be done. Then you'll need the neckband part, which can be spliced. In fact, you are going to end up with (2 each of) three sections, with a couple of seams. Go find a long tie you do not like at all and open it up carefully and see if you can't lay out your bow tie on the amount of fabric it yields. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised.

For those who aren't keen on sewing, what I mean is this- rip the center seam and flatten out the old (donor) tie. Resign yourself to doing some piecing / seaming. You will have to cut out two bow ties and sew them together, then turn it inside out. Before doing that, though, you will have to patch together the parts. Depending on how you like to count, there are either 4 end pieces and 2 neckband pieces, or 2 left end pieces, 2 right end pieces and 2 neckband pieces. It is just that the left and right generally look the same. And, yes, you have to lay out the tie so that the stripes run at the same angle, which uses more fabric. But the neckband portion need not be blue and gold striped at all, if you run short. Just be sure you have allowed enough margin for the entire knot to be seamless and striped. There are three usual bow tie patterns, what might be called diamond end, paddle end, or butterfly. Each has its adherents and its tricks of construction. Show us a picture when you have finished, please.

[Mael Coluim]

I have had Beau Ties of Vermont make bowtie conversions from neck ties and have been pleased with the end result.

Here is my ABF bowtie conversion done by them.

[Liam]

I have had Beau Ties of Vermont make bowtie conversions from neck ties and have been pleased with the end result.

Here is my ABF bowtie conversion done by them.

Great looking tie! I too have become a fan of bow ties with a kilt.

Cheers...Bill

[HippieLee]

OK this may be a dumb question but what makes one bow tie worth 100+ dollars while Amazon has silk and other material real life bow ties for 5 bucks? What could be the difference? I'm not afraid to pay for quality but I just don't see how there can be THAT much difference...

[MacLowlife]

OK this may be a dumb question but what makes one bow tie worth 100+ dollars while Amazon has silk and other material real life bow ties for 5 bucks? What could be the difference? I'm not afraid to pay for quality but I just don't see how there can be THAT much difference...

Until fairly recently, bow ties have been hard to find. The established people are the carriage trade. They don't wear out easily and there is surprisingly little downward pressure on prices.

eBay is awash in them from China, presumably actully silk, for well under $10. But once you get beyond the internet ( does anybody get beyond the internet anymore?) there are only a few sources and they are all used to charging. The aforementioned Beau Ties of Vermont sells very nice ties, as does Ben Silver ( (at about $75 and up) and Brooks Brothers. I have to admit, the Chinese ones are often in odd colors and less-than-perfect stripes and combinations. As some X markers have recognized, it is not rocket science and there are a lot of cottage industries that sell bow ties. A guy who used to sell other people's accessory lines ( Randy Hanauer) has built a nice line of bow ties around the sewing production of a few dozen ladies in Rock Hill, SC...http://www.bowties.com/ Ooops, make that Fort Mill. If you really want Rock Hill, you want THE CORDIAL CHURCHMAN - don't ask me why they are called that... http://www.thecordialchurchman.com/ They seem to be a little cheaper.

I'll bet there is a handy sewing craftsperson near you who makes bow ties. But, you'd be surprised at how much these clever people want for an half hour or so of labor, a few dollars' worth of fabric and some entrepreneurial oomph. It gets to be $40 pretty fast and that's without a showroom or a middle man.

[HippieLee]

I like 30~40 a lot better than 75~90~175. They got some nice stuff at both those places!

[Calgacus]

I'm sorry, but you are all approaching this problem from entirely the wrong angle. Rather than trying to shrink the sett, simply enlarge the tie!



This sort of thinking outside the box is what I'm paid for, but as you're all friends, I'll give you this one for free.

[usonian]

RE: Spoonflower, I have used them before and their service is great, but I can attest that large solid fields of solid, darker colors don't come out as crisply as one might like. However, for something with a fairly small area like a bow tie you could probably get away with it with the X-Marks tartan. You may want to order a couple of swatches (one in their cotton/silk blend, one in cotton sateen) to see what you think before committing to more yardage.

As for the prices of some bow ties versus others... I think part of it is leftover scarcity pricing (when I first started looking for a self-tie bow tie 6 years ago, they were much harder to find, even online) and the other part is caché, at least for some retailers; Beau Ties Ltd. is probably one of the best established brands specifically known for selling Bow Ties, so they seem to be able to get away with some of their higher-prices.

I'll bet there is a handy sewing craftsperson near you who makes bow ties. But, you'd be surprised at how much these clever people want for an half hour or so of labor, a few dollars' worth of fabric and some entrepreneurial oomph. It gets to be $40 pretty fast and that's without a showroom or a middle man.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It is neither realistic nor fair to compare a local, one-person operation to the economies of scale (not to mention the rock bottom wages and not-great working conditions) that make $5-10 bow ties possible on Ebay and Amazon. Bow ties don't take anywhere near as long to make as a hand-sewn 8 yard kilt, but it's the same principle; by the time you add up materials and account for time realistically and fairly, nobody is getting rich selling bow ties out of their home.

I actually happen to make and sell bow ties. It's a cottage industry I stumbled into; I made a few for myself, and when people started asking where I'd gotten them I put some on Etsy for the heck of it. Much to my surprise people started buying them! The price of my ties reflects time spent cutting out, sewing, trimming, turning out, hand-assembling, material & notion costs, and a small margin. Given other overhead that creeps in --listing/transaction fees, fuel & vehicle wear & tear when go to buy fabric, etc, time spent corresponding with customers, time spent photographing & managing listings-- I probably ought to charge more.

[MacLowlife]

Usonian,

I believe you are entitled to charge what you believe your time is worth. I know I couldn't make a bow tie for $10, even if I did it while I was watching TV. All of that turning takes skill and then there is pressing, etc.

I thought hard about trying to capitalize on the cheap ones on the internet- hoping to get some college boy to help me sell them at the local U, where Daddy's Money generally goes for the $50 and up variety. If I bought the ties for $5 in bulk, I'd want to get $10-$12 for them, but I'd also want to leave my retail distributor some room to compare them favorably to the "specialty store" goods. That means he'd probably have to sell them at $25 or less. He would want to get right between the price points of "way cheaper than in the store" and "I can get them myself on the internet for that". And he'd have to hustle to collect and deliver, etc. There would be colors that sold out and colors that wouldn't sell.

Assume I went in really big- buying 100 or so ties- I'd stand a fair chance of doubling my money but a fair chance also of being left with a lot of ties and worst of all, some famously irresponsible 19 year old making off with my cash. The more I thought about it, the more I figured I would leave that project to someone else and spend my money on lottery tickets. A more desperate or entrepreneurial person would buy and sell the ties himself. And it might work for a while.

This is just a small illustration of why retail stores charge "so much".

As for why small-scale craftspeople have to, well, the first thing that comes to mind after the time factor is that they are probably better off selling 3 ties for $45 than selling 6 ties for $22.50. You are saturating your market and using up your inventory- and after a long weekend of sitting in some barnyard, you still have barely enough for meals and a tankful of gas.

When you get some inventory built up, please consider becoming an X marks partner or advertiser- or at least a registered hobbyist.

Thanks for the 411 on Spoonflower, too. I have often wondered.

[HippieLee]

I sincerely hope nobody here thought I was disparaging fine craftsmanship and the artistry so often on display by X-Markers. I was more intrigued by the mechanics of what goes into a bow-tie. For instance, I'd bet a lunch and a beer that Usonian's and OP Mikilt's bow ties are every bit as well made (and maybe moreso) as this 115 dollar offering from Nordstrom:

And while we're here looking at this image can we be sure this David Hart fellow didn't swipe the X-Marks color scheme? ;-)

Yes sirs, being an artist at heart (if not so much in my hands) I don't begrudge a single penny you folks can get for all your fine goods.