Not ‘just another tie….’
by Claire Shefchik
As it turns out, not every tie has a silver lining. In fact, some don’t have linings at all. Struck by the debut of Salvatore Ferragamo’s $180 fearsome five-fold Museo tie, Thomas Pink, the tailored shirt guru of London’s Jermyn Street, decided to throw down the gauntlet and introduce their own version of the Seven Fold.
The $125 Seven Fold Tie (that’s $18 a fold, if you’re counting), makes use of a single two-and-a-half yard piece of silk which, over the course of an hour, is taken and folded in on itself seven times and then hand-stitched together — think of it as functional origami.
The last time the Seven Fold style was popular was with Gilded Age-era captains of industry, who prided themselves on being presented as gentlemen with means. The style all but disappeared during the Depression, when luxury went from something few could afford to something no one could afford.
Robert Talbott helped bring the tie back during the corporate resurgence of the eighties, when executives snapped up anything that even hinted at status…and now Thomas Pink is doing the same thing.
It’s incredibly important, more than ever, to look your best and present yourself to the world as the successful (or soon to be successful) entrepreneur that you are.
Perhaps now, in 2010, men are coming to realize that far from being mere furnishing, a tie can also furnish one’s well-being. There’s nothing sexier than a beautiful tie waiting to be un-knotted. Makes a hell of a statement in the boardroom, too.
Wearing the Seven Fold makes a commitment to wearing the tie as a concept, or, as Oscar Wilde might say, the Tie for Tie’s Sake. The patterns at Pink are luminous and subtle, named after men whose art and manner spoke for them — Chaplin, Bogart, Grant, Astaire — men that were never ignored.
Put something around your neck that makes you feel like Humphrey Bogart. See how well it rises to the occasion.
