Very hard to pull off, so good luck with that one BB.
One of the things I like about the ivy look is that it is firmly in the middle of the road as far as gentlemens smart dress is concerned. Providing you steer clear of extremes, for example too wide or too narrow labels, you will get by and even look vaguely hip to the casual onlooker. However bow ties cause you to veer dangerously into trad territory.
There's a guy that occasionally posts on Ivy Style FB page, who likes wearing top hats and puts up pictures of himself walking around his locale wearing them. He's convinced himself that he looks okay but it can only be some form of attention seeking. A bow tie is not as extreme as that, but its a step in that direction if you ask me.
I have dallied with bow ties, but came to the conclusion that, aside from formal dinner wear, they are just one of those items that are so far rooted in antiquity that you are never going to look anything more than cranky and eccentric wearing one. They are just too out of step with the modern world in which we have to live and work.
Thanks for your input, woof... I agree that the bow tie isn't Ivy as much as Trad... Wearing a top hat is neither, and should be left on the heads of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster where it belongs!
I also think the bow tie has become (like open surgeon's cuff's, contrast club collars and nipped waists) a signal of being "fashionable" that actually looks very gauche... A lot of Pitti Uomo style has its roots in the 1920s, but thinks that simply by Thom Browne-ifying it with short pants and pointy shoes, it becomes cutting edge... (Parallels to the Peaky Blinders thread here)...
So to succeed, I think, the bow tie must be simply part of the outfit, not there to make a point (either "Look at how much of a Gentleman™ I am" or "Look at how #Menswear I am")...
I'm not sure if it's possible, but the contrarian in me wants to try... I actually seem to remember that Coolidge wore a bow tie with a beautiful tweed suit in an ILSFT outfit over the winter and it worked well...
really the only people to pull them off in the annals of recorded history have been Churchill, Archibald Cox, John Paul Stevens, and, fictionally, John Houseman as Charles Kingsfield ....
generally a fan of D. P. Moynihan's style but don't think the bow tie did him any favors
I either had or still have two very nice bow ties from Brooks Brothers and the Andover Shop circa 1982/1983, when I was in law school ... don't know if I ever wore them
if I ever get into teaching law Imma dig those out, the Brooks is a navy foulard and the Andover is a beautiful repp, they were so nice I actually searched for and found the same patterns in neckties, and they're favorites to this day
for my purposes, the bow tie is constrictive and isn't the best thing for the tropical climate
P.S. that dorky guy is also the poster child for the tattersall waistcoat ... even back then he looked archaic .....
If that shit ain't on elastic.. then I ain't going there..
The problem with wearing a bow tie is you become "the guy over there in the bow tie."
Unhappily for those of us who own a few, they are now almost as archaic as spats.
No, no and no again. Never, ever, under any circumstances.
One advantage of getting kicked out of IS FB group (I mean kicked out permanently - none of this one month ban like Woof the lightweight received) is that I'm no longer subjected to dreadful photos of people in bow ties. Ivy? Most look more like they work in a fast food joint.
On Connery. At a casino. In a piece of film fiction? Maybe
Hanging loose from Sammy or Deano's neck as they tumble out of The Sands? Possibly
Any other walk of human life? Absolutely not. Never.
On an American Senator, as outlined above, around the time Chubby Checker was charting - okay. Now, on igents on IG (or whatever), posing in their bow ties and big fuck-off shoes (sans socks) nay and thrice nay.
In the ad world of the eighties wearing a bow tie was considered very cool as Maurice Saatchi and Robin Wight - two prominent figures wore them.
Personally, I hated them and I'm constantly reminded that the reason they called Dickie Bows is they're often wrapped round Pr*c!$.
Peter York wrote about the bow tie being a part of the J.Simons Radical Graphic look, all part of that 1980s rebirth of design thing that ultimately gave rise to the opening of Conran's Design Museum in Shad Thames in 89. And I recall going to an exhibition at the Boilerhouse in the V&A, curated by Stephen Bayley, which celebrated 'design classics' such as Weejuns, 501s and the Brooks Brothers oxford button-down. Heady stuff back then. I thought it was all wonderful. An old girlfriend got to the Design Museum before me and sent me a postcard of a gun metal grey Vespa GS, part of their permanent collection. But bow ties - fuck that, I've tried and I look like a complete tool.
I'm afraid all that V&A type stuff bores and depresses me. The Castle Museum at York decided it wanted to join in the fun, didn't have the space to do it, so ruined the Edwardian street scene I'd loved since childhood. Filled it with scooters, images of The Beatles, Carnaby Street etc. Is the BB OCBD a 'design classic'? Who decides these things?
I was reading up on Pop Art last evening. The suggestion was made that 'fashionable' clothing is linked with Pop Art. Our style, too? Well, argue among yourselves.
But to see a pair of loafers in a glass case... be 'informed' of their 'significance...' no, thanks.
Yes but the Design Museum in Shad Thames was always worth a visit. I loved the building, the location and the content. I went there on a few occasions. I only visited the new Design museum in the old Commonwealth building once. I thought it lacking and didn't go back.
I’ve experimented with them and quickly decided it’s a no-no. Very occasionally I see someone wearing a bow tie to good effect and I’m tempted for a moment, but luckily the moment soon passes. It’s usually younger guys who are able to carry it off. The example that sticks in my mind was when we paid a visit to O’Connell’s in Buffalo whilst on holiday a few years ago, one of the Hober brothers was working in there and had taken his jacket off to move some stock around. He was wearing grey tweed trousers with braces, a white Oxford, tan wingtips and a reddish bow tie with a muted pattern and he looked terrific. It was appropriate to that setting and was done with the necessary panache. But in most situations a bow tie is so out of the norm as to immediately mark you down as an eccentric, a bit like that chap who posts pictures of himself on some of the forums, walking around his local neighbourhood whilst wearing a top hat.
I've only owned two bow ties and they were for black tie events, in the dim and distant past.
I worked with two architects that both wore bow ties. They clashed over work issues and didn't get on. There was only room for one bow tie wearer in the studio. Interestingly one of them was desperate for an award (OBE or something) but it was the other one that, years later, ended up rewarded with a knighthood! None of us who worked with Sir understood how that happened.
I can't see that ivy and bow ties go together.