All posts in Ties

WFH: Ties at Home

I knew that I would eventually break down and put on a tie while working from home. All of the ingredients were there. I like ties, I can’t wear one at the office, add in the the monotonous boredom of working from home alone in a small apartment with no outdoor space, and you have yourself a pretty solid recipe. The question became, which tie?

I generally shy away from ties with crests or affiliations that I have no affiliation with, but I do have a few of them. I was glad that I did because this blue crested tie worked out really well. Navy was the perfect color as it took the place of a blazer and grounded the look. It didn’t look too out of place without a jacket as some of the others that I tried out and the crests added a little pop of a color so that the tie didn’t get lost in the blue of the shirt.

Now that I had the tie figured out I needed to attend to the shoes. I wanted the look to make sense even though wearing a tie while working from home doesn’t make all that much sense. Penny loafers looked to formal to my eye so I lost the socks and went with some Eastland camp mocs. I liked the moc look and rolled with it.

There you have my balancing act. I wore a tie without a jacket in the most informal setting imaginable which is working from my couch and I think it looked pretty good. This crested navy tie walked a fine line. It was subdued enough to lay low against a flap pocket OCBD while the crests added just enough whimsy to make it fun while the camp mocs balanced out the bottom half. The most important part of all of this effort was that I had fun. Something that is hard to come by these days.

Summer Ties

I have a few ties that I really enjoy wearing in the summer. It is not that they are made from seasonal material such as Madras, Seersucker, or Shantung, but their color calls for warm weather. They also all work well with a navy blazer and especially well with my not quite navy blue wash-n-wear jacket turned blazer.

Summer Stripe tiesAbove are the ties that I love to wear when the sun is out and the weather is warm. They are nice and colorful with stripes that pop. There is also a lot of green which is no surprise as I have a thing for green (Going Green: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). From left to right we have a vintage Robert Talbott, a current Arnold Steiner (see here), a vintage Gant, and a few year old Lands’ End tie to round it out. I was happy to see that at least 1 item I posted about is actually still available.
IMG_1719Here are a few take aways from this post. One, trying sporting a brighter repp tie this summer. I find that it keeps my look aligned with the season adding an element of fun to the often somber or at least predictable navy blazer combos without resorting to whimsical club ties (nothing wrong with them). The last take away is that this post reminded how much use I like having a blue jacket that is not navy. May be worth considering.

Below are more pics of my summer ties because what is a post without pics!
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I know My Rites

After my recent post on going sans tie I was pressed about my desire to wear a tie. This led led me to do some reflecting. Why do I want to wear suits, sports coats, and ties?  I know that I have always liked and been interested in style but I don’t think that this is the driving factor.

What I do think is driving or at least was driving this aspiration is rite of passage. I had imagined that at some point in my life that I would be a successful adult man. I pictured myself working in a downtown office, wearing suits, and carrying a briefcase, but it seems like I missed that boat. When I entered the workforce it was a sea of business casual and casual Friday at best. I pushed forward wearing a tie albeit occasionally. As I wrote a few weeks ago this is not always best for your career. It hasn’t harmed mine yet, but I have learned when and where I can away with it.

Dressing like a business man was something that I had looked forward to happening. Similar to getting a drivers license, voting, or having your first drink is how I viewed getting to wear a tie. It was also a mark of success in my mind. It was part of my rite of passage into adulthood and I feel like I got the short end of the stick, but that’s probably a lot better than no stick at all.

I will leave you with a few thoughts (and lots of ties pictures!). Maybe the real transition was never about the clothes at all, but rather conformity? Perhaps how I feel about not getting to wear a tie is how others felt in the past when they were forced to wear a tie in the office? They hated it, but they did it because they were grown-ups.

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Who You Width?

For the longest time I thought that my perfect tie width was 3.25″. I have jackets with 2.75″ lapels from the boom years and 3.5″ from the 90s. A 3.25″ ties seemed to work pretty well with all of them, but I saw a picture of myself this week and began to rethink it all.

Picking out the the right tie width for yourself is not rocket science. Like almost anything in clothing it is all about scale.There are only a few things that you need to consider which are your body’s dimensions, the size of your lapel, and size of your collar, but its easy to forget that it is not all math. I myself had lost sight of this.

Here are the pics that I referenced above. The picture directly below is of me in a 3.25″ tie. It looks a little too wide. The picture below it is of me in a 3″ tie. In the past I would have said that 3″ is just a little to skinny, but looking at the two pictures I would say that 3″ tie looks a little better. Others will of course disagree. That is fine.

The moral of this story is that style cannot be achieved purely by following equations. There is a little bit of art to it and a lot of personal preference. Another important thing to keep in mind is that your opinion will change. That is okay too. Growth is good. Just remember not to throw out all those ties you didn’t think worked at the moment!
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Red Stripes

For me it has always been about blue. The blue OCBD worn with a pair khaki chinos is simple perfection. It can be worn anywhere and anytime. If I want to look a little more sophisticated I may sub a blue university striped OCBD for my plain blue OCBD under a blazer. However, when purchasing a new shirt from Michael Spencer I decided to throw a little caution to the wind and opted for a red university stripe or as they call it “Candy Striped.”

I have never owned a red university striped shirt before. I have owned a pink uni stripe which actually inspired this choice. The difference being that the pink shirt was alpha sized and because of that was never paired with a tie. I did however see its potential.

The color and stripes of this shirt can add a little pop to otherwise standard rigs. I have paired my red uni stripe with a winter white Shetland, grey Shetland, and brown Shetland which all worked well. By far the most fun that I have had with this shirt is wearing it with ties. As I have written about before uni stripe shirts are great for wearing regimental ties with (Striped Shirt & Striped Tie). The red color presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

If like me you are a true blue OCBD type of guy I encourage you to give a red university stripe a shot. It will work with everything from grey Shetlands to blue blazers to brown tweeds and more. I will continue to experiment with my red striped shirt as I still need to wear it a few more times before I give the shirt a full review.
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