100 Days, 100 Ties

If you thought the Little Brick Shirt House label was good, you’re going to love this one. Four words, innocuous enough when solo, creating a collective oxymoron: Full Fashioned Crochet Rayon.

In case you didn't realize fashion could be fractional. It's FULL FASHIONED!

Those words just roll off the tongue, don’t they? Well, someone at the Wembley Necktie company thought it would. It’s one thing to claim the level of fashion, another to admit that something is crocheted, much less rayon. I know they didn’t have this movie quote from ‘Animal House’–90RAYON–to help them know about rayon’s unhipness, but still…

Rayon = stay on

Anyway, this is my only knit tie, and thanks to the Wembley copywriter, we know it was crocheted out of England’s finest and most fully-fashionable rayon. It’s a great blue with grey slanted stripes, and it reminds me of my high school days. Yep, at Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, I had to wear a tie to school every day. After 4 years of such suppression by ‘The Man’ I don’t know how I came to like wearing ties by now. I’d call it a maturity thing, but those of you who know me will call out my initials.

I have to admit that, after writing this blog for only a week, I missed it over the weekend. Probably a welcome break, but I definitely thought about which ties to wear this week. All of the feedback, even from Neil the Sassy British Fashion Wizard, was very welcomed, and it is quite motivating.

Thanks for reading. Welcome to the 2nd week of 100 Days, 100 Ties.

Brooke

Here’s to your health on St. Patrick’s Day. This verdant concoction of shirt & tie should be salubrious enough to counter the effects of alcohol that will be coursing through the veins of collective Chicago.

Pink hearts? No. Yellow moons? Nuh-uh. Green clovers?! Gotcha.

My tie today is cheap in so many ways…no lining, chintzy fabric; plus, it came from the $1 section at Target. But it’s worth a lot more to me than that…my daughter Julia, on a recent ‘treasure-hunting’ trip with my Mom to the aforementioned Target, returned proudly with this tie in hand for me to wear on St. Patrick’s Day. How could a Dad–with a heart, at least–resist?

I’m proud to say that this photo is the first one that actually portrays the true color of my featured tie du jour. Seeing as the little shamrocks practically emit their own light, my flash-less iPhone camera finally came through in the artistic department.

My green getup is completed by my green shirt, as well as some green stone cufflinks and a green pocket square for gray suit (which will likely take on a greenish tinge as the day goes on).

My great-grandmother, Maud DuFour, was a Ryan by birth, so let’s do the math…I’m 1/16 Irish, right? No, double it, I think. 1/8 Irish, even better; and, no matter my fractional expertise, it’s enough on St. Patrick’s Day.

So, a toast to a tie, and a tie for a toast. Happy St. Patty’s, everyone! Thanks for reading.

Brooke

Well, today’s green tie fits in with the St. Patrick’s Day celebration that’s been going on for a few days now. Green Chicago River, green hair, green garb. Tomorrow’s tie will be even greener, and hopefully they will both make it thru the fete without droplets of Guinness all over it. That would be a terrible waste to spill part of a pint. Terrible shame.

Alfred's dark green cotton boll tie with silver tiebar

This may well be my oldest tie, clocking in at 35-40 years old, and I’m pretty sure today was the first time I ever wore it. It belonged to my Dad, and it was one of the handful that I kept when he went all RIF on me. That’s ‘Retired In Florida.’ I think he has one tie now…maybe two.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee (oh, you mean, as opposed to Memphis, Egypt?), and there was a store down there called Alfred’s, so they tell me. Their signature tie, or one of them at least, was the cotton boll tie. So they tell me. Memphis has a history as the epicenter of the cotton industry; its location at the centerpoint of the Mississippi Delta cotton fields made it the optimal location for the Cotton Exchange that brought much wealth to the city. And to honor that heritage, someone decided to make a polyester tie. Well-ironed irony.

Since the tie was a hand-me-down, I’ll tell you about where I got the tiebar. Right before Christmas I went into Secret Treasures Antiques on Dempster (twitter: @ST_Antiques); their stuff was so cool and inexpensive (I’d rather say ‘fairly priced’). I walked out with about 10-12 presents, along with 4 or 5 new tiebars, including this one, for myself.

Well, as I sign off, I want to remind everyone to drink responsibly tonight, because, after all, tomorrow night is actually St. Patty’s,  and you’ll need to save your strength for then…

Thanks for reading…Brooke

I counted my ties this morning. I thought I had way fewer than a hundo, which would have given me the chance to expand my collection to complete my 100 Days/100 Ties project. I have 116. But, we’re sticking with the title, and we’ll just go with the best 100. That’ll keep me from being forced to sport a couple of Christmas ties in May, so that’s nice.

Today we begin with a multi-purpled, striped number…four different purples, right there on one stretch of fabric. A touch wide for my present taste, but the slim stripes make up for it a bit. It looks nice with the blue/white shirt (sorry, terrible picture), as well as with the charcoal-with-blue-pinstriped suit for the day.

It’s a Ted Baker, and I picked it up this past weekend at the Salvation Army store in Evanston for all of $1.55. I know, where’d I get the cash, right?! A lot of my ties are from resale shops around here. I just can’t bring myself to pay more than the price of an over-priced sandwich for a tie, and I generally limit myself to 10-12 bucks. Just a quick search on Ted Baker ties indicates that these are $50+ ties (or £40+, according to tedbaker.com). I’ll have a lot of comments on the great things you can find at resale shops, as well as at discount retailers like TJMaxx & Marshall’s. One man’s trash, and one merchant’s prior season, is another man’s treasure…

Well, this is tie #1. I guess I won’t be wearing it again for a couple months, but it’ll be all ready to go for the lead-up to Northwestern’s football season. Thanks for reading, my first 100 Days, 100 Ties posting.