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"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts."
Henry David Thoreau
©2009, 2010 Easy and Elegant Life. All Rights Reserved. If you would like to reprint an article or repurpose a photo, please email me for permission.
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Skinny ties are back and with them comes the resurgence of the tie clip. All well and good say I. Just know that there is more than one way to wear the clip.
Most of what you’ll see in the fashion magazines will show a clip worn straight across the tie.
(Image: GQ)
But tie clips have been around longer than the skinny tie and have been worn by some very fashionable men.
 (Image: EasyArt.com)
Notice that the tie clip is worn at an angle? If worn with stripes, it would cross them instead of following the direction of the stripe up or down. I rarely wear a tie clip, although I have several that were in high rotation during the 80′s, but when I do, I don’t like to play it too straight.
What’s your angle?
Was I feeling less ambitious? More conservative? Given the stripes of the suit, which can read as lavender with the right shirt and tie, and the pink shirt, maybe I was. I initially had a blue and pink tie finishing this rig, bringing the total number of patterns up to five, if you count the fancy stripe socks I’m wearing. I changed the tie for the matte navy linen one pictured and I think it was for the best.
I don’t have to see clients today and I don’t work in an office, so I dress for me. Why the sudden conservative’ish bent? I’m beginning to feel that extreme colour and pattern mixing is best left to informal — read sportcoat and odd trouser — dressing. I still wouldn’t label this ensemble “subtle”, but neither will it shock anyone who isn’t a banker, CPA or George Clooney.
What about you? Do you prize subtlety or prefer glamour when wearing a suit?
[Editor's Note: I'm doing four things at once today, hoping to do at least one very well. Please forgive me for repurposing a post that I wrote for my tailor, but I thought that you might find the information in it useful. I believe the illustration comes courtesy of Tintin, The Trad, but can't be sure. The idea here is to show you how to stretch your wardrobe dollar by combining pattern and color. Many thanks for your kind understanding and I hope you enjoy the article.]
Here’s an idea courtesy of Leviner Wood Custom Tailors and Shirtmakers: Get more uses from your six favorite ties.
You’ve got hundreds of ties don’t you? But let’s face it, you really only love about six of them, right? And you wind up wearing them with the same four shirts over and over again.
Why not get more use out of those same ties and build another dozen choices into your wardrobe? The great advantage to having Leviner Wood as your custom tailor is that you have your clothing made.
There is very little in the way of inventory hanging around the studio. Nope, you get thousands of choices, not dozens that were bought thanks to runway trends and now have to be moved.
Let’s take those ties we were talking about.
Bring them in to the studio at 2012 Monument Ave. . Then let’s get out the big, three-ring binder of shirting materials and pick three fabrics that play beautifully with each one of those favorite ties. That’s the way everyone used to do things and the way that we, as custom tailors and shirtmakers still can.
Take a look at that photo at the top of the page. That was from “Apparel Arts” magazine, summer of ’34 or so. It was an industry rag that reported on what was being worn and how to wear it. The center swatch is suiting fabric, the next ring is shirtings, the outer ring is for accessories like ties, socks, pocket squares. One suit, twelve different combinations. Correction: suggested combinations based on season and popularity. All guaranteed winners.
Call it keeping up appearances with a minimum of effort on your part. We’ll do the matching, even take photos of suggested combinations for you. All you’ve got to do is bring in those six ties that you love so much. So double down on that repp. Box a favorite regimental stripe. Hit the trifecta of perfect shirts with that beautiful, heavy woven silk number. If that isn’t added value, we don’t know what is.
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Welcome Luxe, calme et volupté.*
That sounds wonderful.
In today’s world, I find that there is a disturbing lack of all of the above. Maybe it’s the speed at which we live our daily lives, multitasking during each measured moment of the day and well into our nights. Whatever the reason, I think that we’ve lost something that our parents and grandparents took for granted. Not just an ease in society or how to throw an intimate dinner for six or write a thank you note, but an everyday elegance.
Easy and Elegant Life is my attempt to define what makes up an elegant existence and to pass along a few easy (and inexpensive) ideas for bringing back a little elegance to our everyday lives. Here you will find ideas for living, decorating, entertaining and dressing with an easy elegance. Not just my ideas. To help point the way, I intend to seek out all sorts of people -- professional lifestyle experts and those who seem to have been born elegant -- asking them what they believe constitutes elegance and how we can best achieve it.
So to those whom Honore de Balzac called “elegantologists” I dedicate this site and the good fight.
* From “L’Invitation au voyage” by Charles Baudelaire. The whole line reads: “Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté/ Luxe, calme et volupté.”
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(Image: EasyArt.com)