Let Bygones Be Tiegones

January 13, 2012

Sometimes I don a tie, and feel that it was one that I wore back in the high school days. I wore a tie to school every day in junior high (dark blue in 7th grade, our choice in 8th) as well as high school. Ah, Catholicism…

Solid as Iraq

My Tie du Jour is from days gone by. It’s a vintage knit from the Royal Knight collection from Joslins, a company so out-of-date that it is ungoogleable. This is a kid’s tie, as it barely had enough tie to make it down to my belt. I don’t think you can see from the picture, but the tail is held together by the tie bar.

This day was a pretty big day in the history of TieXchange. Friend and a many-time GWT, Dr. Vince Roberts (of Reavy Rehab) submitted the first picture of his TieXchange tie, a purple striped beauty from Astor & Black. This was a former 100D100T strip, from last April. Another friend, and former GirlWT, Billie Kershasky, is a sales rep for A&B.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

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Roll Tied Roll

January 10, 2012

Well, it was a well-deserved victory last night. Not only did ‘Bama win the BCS national championship, they also won placement as 100 Days, 100 Ties subject header, over ‘Geaux Tiegers.’ I’m sure they are reserving a spot in their substantial trophy case to prominently display a screen shot of my blog.

Funny story about Alabama. I only applied to three colleges – Georgia Tech, U of Illinois & Alabama. Tech admitted me first, and then I chose Illinois when they let me in (they pledged that the weather would be MUCH better). But the best admission came from Bama, from whom I received a packet addressed to ‘Miss Brooke Saucier.’ Yes, they had accepted me as a woman. Over the next few weeks, I got letters from prospective sororities, and a note from my resident advisor in my dorm, who said something to the effect that she knew about all the best parties.. My thoughts immediately went to how much fun it would be to shock not only my roommate, but her daddy. “Hi, I’m your roommate. Brooke. When’s shower time around here?” Oh, but, alas, Bama’s new student week perfectly coincided with U of I, so I wasn’t able to give a poor fella from Montgomery a heart attack.

As for my Tie du Jour, I thought it best to wait on the purple and gold tie that would have celebrated a victory for the ‘Geaux Tiegers’ subject header. Better to let the wounds heal. This strip from Perry Ellis may be just the soother that Bayou Bengal country needs. Its texture goes pretty well with that of my gray (British eq: grey) shirt. Well, I’m just so proud of myself, aren’t I?

I’d like to introduce a new Guy With Tie here. Paul Zalmezak is a planner with the City of Evanston’s Economic Development Department, focusing on technology and its place in the Evanston business community. He was meeting over at CoLab Evanston, where TieXchange offices. Great guy. Great tie.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

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White Ties Can’t Jump

January 9, 2012

Since my memory is not as good as it was since before I can remember, I’m changing things up here. I mentioned in my last post that I have 18 ties to write about, and I can’t keep letting weeks (oh, ok, months) go between wearing and writing about ’em. There are just too many things that are going on in life, and I want to make the posts timely. So, this post will actually be for a tie that I wore today; I’ll probably post about a past tie tomorrow, or on a day that I don’t wear a tie. Must. Catch. Up.

So, my Tie du Jour, I’m afraid to say, reminds me of Alabama’s colors, crimson and white. It’s from Arrow, and it is pure white. Of course, I wore it with a red, checked shirt. I blame the fact that it was early in the morning when I got dressed. I did tone it down a bit, wearing a gray (British eq: grey) v-neck sweater over it all. Not sure if this one will make it to TieXchange.

Yeesh…my Cajun relatives will be very upset with me. I probably shouldn’t mention that I had a gorgeous, purple and gold strip from Lee Allison, ready to go. I’ll just wear it tomorrow, after they win. I have a New Orleans Saints tie that I’ll need to sport by the end of the week. Got to show some love for the state of my conception*. So, tomorrow’s subject will be based on the winner of tonight’s game: Geaux Tiegers or Roll Tied Roll. A little bet with myself.

*No, I do NOT know the actual story of my conception. (Ew.) I do, however, know that my parents moved to Memphis 6 months before I was born. Math. Conception. Know it.

We have a couple of GWTs here…one Guy With Tie and one Girl With Tie.

Our GuyWT is Chip Grogg (call him Grogg). I met him with his business partner, Sallie Arant, a former neighbor of mine. They’d stopped by the distillery, and he was wearing this very cool, vintage tie. He upped the ante by sending this shot of his tie cubby. Oh, man, some of these fabrics are soooooo cool. Color me jealous.

But, check this tie out…Vanessa Walilko has a jewelry/fashion design company called Kali Butterfly. Amazing chainmaille necklaces, bracelets, earrings, even clothing. She made this scale tie…it resembles a beautiful fish, doesn’t it? I’m afraid I may have to wear this one day. Kinda even matches her phone case, dudnit?

Thanks for reading…Brooke

 

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Can’t spell ‘Tim Tebow’ without T-I-E…

January 9, 2012

Not wearing a Tebow Tie

I figured I may as well strike the Tebow search engine while it’s at its hottest. Even though my TdJ was worn about 2 months ago, I’m moved to mention today’s Tim Tebow’s playoff victory with the Denver Broncos. It was a very fun game to watch, as Tebow tebunked his image as an all-run-no-throw QB against the vaunted Pittsburgh Steelers defense. First play of overtime, long pass to Demaryius Thomas, turn out the lights, thank you for coming, drive carefully.

So, back to the fashion portion of the blog. Or, rather, back to what passes for fashion with me.

Air-men-eh-HEEL-doe

My Tie du Jour hearkens back to a pronunciation lesson that I posted many months ago. Ermenegildo Zegna crafted this light-green, striped beauty. So much quality in this tie. The subtlety of the colors, the weight of the fabric, everything. This will be a big hit on TieXchange, I can tell.

And now I have another thing to count. The number of ties that I have worn that remain un-posted. Yikes, it’s up to 16. Wait, that’s a lie. I have one on my crapiPhone (yes, I do think my pix have made their way back to crapi). That makes 17. And, the lie gets more lie-y…I’m wearing another. Eighteen ties. May need to have a marathon writing session here soon.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

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Ich bin Tien Berliner

January 6, 2012

In a very famous linguistic incident, a very famous tie-wearer, President John F. Kennedy tried to announce to a raucous crowd of Berliners that he, too was a Berliner. Unfortunately, adding the ein in there meant he was claiming to be a jelly donut.

In the past couple of years, it’s been cool to see where 100 Days 100 Ties has shown up, electronically speaking. WordPress has a great statistics interface that shows you how people are finding your blog. Today I was intrigued by the fact that 3 users had come to the page via a German blog called ‘Tie Society.’ I went there, scrolled down about three or four posts, and voila! A mention of 100D100T. All in German, of course. So, for 5 frenetic minutes, I cut/pasted to Yahoo’s Babelfish website, hoping to get a sense of what they said about me (and hoping they didn’t think I was ein Jellydonut.

I love Babelfish, by the way. When you enter full sentences to translate, it usually throws back some fairly hilarious English equivalents. Here is the last sentence of the Tie Society post (which assures me that they’re on board with the concept of 100D100T):

For all the little experimentation joy, offer the side thus a row at carrying and combination variants and the whole have are simply a funny and unterhaltsame idea.

Unterhaltsame, upon further research, is German for ‘entertaining.’ I can take funny and entertaining!

My Tie du Jour (or Krawatte des Tages – KdT – in German) is a skinny one. Very synthetic and very very vintage. It’s from the house of Haband’s. Not sure if I’d wear this pukey-colored mustard on many other articles of clothing, but it seems to be okay on this strip. The cornflower-y blue helps a bit. It pains me to imagine the original owner of this tie potentially wearing this with a pair of matching, pukey-mustard pants. Sansabelts. [shudder]

There is a blog/tiemaker/retailer that I follow a bit, Ellie Laveer. She makes custom bow ties via her company the Cordial Churchman. She and her husband are posting one gorgeous bow tie per day in 2012. Check them out…the fabrics are simply stunning, almost like you can feel them online. I’d love to get some of her ties onto TieXchange.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

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Coffee, tie or me?

January 4, 2012

Haha, snuck a day in there without posting. But, of course, my mom was right on it, with a “did you write your blog today” that had similar tone to it as a good old “did you clean your room”? Thanks, Ma.

The CTdJ (the Catchup Tie du Jour) is another beauty from Lee Allison. This, as you may know by now, is my favorite blue. That cornflower blue, so nice, with a power stripe of red & white thrown in there for good, patriotic measure. No idea where I wore this one, but it was also found, all treasure-like, at Classy Closet at Washington & Custer in Evanston.

This tie will soon be put on the list for the TieXchange. Tomorrow we are sending out our first beta tester ties, and we’re trying to get the mailing just right. We will use an envelope that can be used to return the tie. So, at least we can be a little green, even if your tie isn’t so green.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

 

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Damn your ties, man!

January 1, 2012

Please do not read this post if you have 1) a heart condition 2) an eye condition or 3) one of those strobe-light, Mary-Hart-voice response afflictions. My Hallowe’en party tie du jour was affected by my choice of costume. You’ll see…

This marks three days in a row of posting to 100D100T, and I think this will be tie number 321, and it’s an, um, interesting one to start off 2012. It’s nice to have some momentum…

Off to the TdJ races, ok? We will have a Guy With Tie, and an added bonus of another GWT (Girl With Tie)…DWT (Daughter W/Tie), actually.

...in case y'all wanted to see my pants

Let me explain my costume. I’m a Blind Date. Wearing a coat and tie, of course, but, being blind, nothing matches. Plaid coat, paisley shirt, luau-print pants and, to top it all off, my cotton floral electro-strip of a Tie du Jour from Vivace. Do not adjust your computer screen. Sunglasses may be advisable. And I promise that I will always ask permission before wearing a similar outfit again.

A friend of mine was also wearing a tie that evening, and the bonus of his tie was that it’s a bolo. Fellow Southerner Scott Counts looked rather pimpish in his stony bolo finery.

And another tie-wearer was my Julia, who dressed as Hermione Granger of Harry Potter fame. She had removed her big wig by the time I took this pic.

Again, Happy New Year to everyone out there. I’d like to thank everyone for giving me the reason to come back and write 100 Days 100 Ties again.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

 

 

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Auld Lang Tiene, v.2

December 31, 2011

No, this tie was not worn on New Year’s Eve, but since today is NYE, I figured I’d better get this subject used (again). My next post will actually be my Halloween tie, so we’re definitely performing some holiday bouncing.

Big happenings at TieXchange yesterday…we had our first non-family, non-friend inquiry into our services. It’s a step, right? Not sure how Bill found us, but I’m glad he did.

My Tie du Jour in question is a pretty classy number from English Laundry. It’s gray with a lighter gray crest adorning. I really liked how it went with this striped shirt.

So, I’m writing this with about 8 hours left in 2011 (Central time-wise). This year was mostly good, with sprinkles of bad in there. Those little sprinkles keep you on your toes (I’ll call them sprinkle-toes), and make you appreciate the goods. I met a lot of great, wonderful people this year, and I maintained and bettered even more friendships.

The turn of the year always brings a new hope to optimists like me. I have so many new things in my life right now, I’m practically ebullient to witness the turn of the clock to midnight. Two-thousand twelve (MMXII for you Romans out there) will prove to be spectacular, I can feel it. Of course, my feelings fly out the galaxy if the Mayans were indeed correct about the end-of-the-world predictions.

And, thus, I raise a toast to spectacular years and the inaccurate predicting powers of ancient civilizations. Cheers!

Thanks for reading…Brooke

 

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Buy low, sell tie

December 30, 2011

Can it be? Wow, this is two days in a row with a post! Kind of a pre-New Year’s resolution. I’m so. Darn. Proud of myself.

Let’s make it quick, since this tie was worn waaaay back in November-like. It is a spectacularly green tie, designed by my good friend, Lee Allison (a GWT alum). These ties are made so well, with so much care, that they practically tie themselves. I loved finding this one at a local place called “Classy Closet.” I know I’ve had a bunch of 100D100Ties from there.

This tie will be available on TieXchange very soon. Like, as soon as I take another picture of it, and upload it to our database.

Whoa, and I just kinda figured out my timeline (can’t spell it w/o T-I-E)…in a couple of posts I’ll write about a tie that I wore to a Hallowe’en party. So this one was worn in October, not November. Oh, the procrastination…

I have a lot of Guys With Ties coming up, so stay tuned! And check out TieXchange, if you get a chance.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

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Tie Appointment Only

December 29, 2011

Let’s get right to the point. I have a bunch of ties that I’ve worn over the past couple of months, and I need to write about them. Catching up will be one of my New Year’s resolutions, soooooo…my posts may be on the short side for a week or two.

My Tie du Jour is a classic from Turnbull & Asser, a traditional British fashion house. They are recognized by royal warrant, which means they have provided services to a certain member of the British royals for a number of years. In this case, they claim to be “By Appointment to HRH the Prince of Wales.” So, Prince Charles may have worn a tie like this. It oozes quality, with fantastic silk fabric making it knot up perfectly.

As soon as I get another picture of this tie, it will definitely be available as a TieXchange tie…

Thanks for reading…Brooke

 

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