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366 Bow Ties in 2012: Day 9

I think that if I had a couple pair of Wellies, I could easily live in some shabby place like Seattle.  I've been waiting, ever since returning from holiday vacation in Ohio, for South Carolina to hurry up and be rainy.  I'd been noticing all the ladies around here who have great rain boots, and wishing there were a manly option.  (You may debate the manliness of the entire notion of wearing such things when not gardening or hunting, but you'll not convince me.)  I found these from Le Chemeau, and they're just the ticket. Absurd. Provocative. Utilitarian. Incredibly styling. Classic.  Thanks to Ellie for a fantastic Christmas gift!

But this is about bow ties.  And what a bow tie we have here!  I'm going on the working assumption that whatever I part with, I'll eventually be able to replace with something at least as cool. That assumption is a stretch when it comes to this beauty.

This was one of the first bow ties Ellie ever converted from a necktie.  Vintage silk. Teal blue with a red & white floral foulard pattern.  Diamond point. Bursting with throwback personality. Don this to an audition for Bagger Vance II, and you're not going to be an extra; you may just replace Will Smith.

The great thing about being a "bow tie person" is that people already don't know what to make of you. That is incredibly liberating, allowing you to wear delightfully ridiculous things like Wellies. But the first step is to get yourself a bow tie. Start with this one. Available until it's no longer available, at our store.

Cheers,

Andy

366 Bow Ties: Day 8

It's week two. Our bow of the day is the Morrison, named for my good pal. Houndstooth in blues on one side, olive on the other. One of this Fall/Winter's best sellers, and easily one of my favorites. Rendered here in narrow butterfly.

When you're just learning how to put a more traditional men's ensemble together, you can get pretty intimidated about what goes with what. Lots of people write to say they think they've got the guts to try a bow tie, but don't know what to wear with it. Here's the first thing to know: anything goes with a white or light blue oxford shirt, a navy blazer, khakis, gray trousers, or a gray suit. Get each of these things, and you essentially have a traditional wardrobe.

But at the most basic level, find a bow tie that looks appropriate for the season, put it with a white or blue Oxford and a blue blazer, and you're at once traditional and oozing personal style.

Today is an example of a variation on the basic bow tied uniform: a university stripe Oxford with a houndstooth patterned bow tie. Uni stripe Oxfords--especially blue--go with almost anything except ties that are striped in the same scale. Mixing up the pattern scale keeps things from getting too busy, but adds a level of interest that isn't achieved with a solid shirt.

We enjoyed a fantastic dinner today prepared by the first ever Cordial Churchman employee, Kay. It's hard to imagine having been able to sustain a business had we not had Kay's help and enthusiasm. Nowadays, she's running an international aid ministry, which makes her the most successful survivor of the Cordial Churchman sweat shop. Her agency will be the recipient of all the proceeds of our 366 Bow Ties sales. We look forward to telling you more about the partnership as it develops. It looks as though we'll be focusing our help on Haiti, perhaps with an opportunity to visit there later in the year.

Kay and Heiko and their 3 children spent a decade living and working in Berlin, and they have lots of neat Deutsche paraphernalia around the house. Kay is one of the most amazing non-professional interior decorators on the planet, I'd wager. Their home is beautiful without being even slightly pretentious or extravagant. Like in clothes, a good eye, a few basic principles, and a developed personal style seems to be the key.

So run over to the store, grab yourself a Morrison bow tie. Grab this one in narrow butterfly. Or grab one in another style. Grab one for your boss, your assistant, your preacher, your professor, your husband, your son, your girlfriend, your dog. Stick it with a blue or white shirt--or a uni strip, and make your an everyone else's world a little more interesting, and a little more classic, all at the same time.

Cordially,

Andy

PS, we had a Downton Abbey premiere party this evening. I "dressed up" to go as a period bicycle repair man. Ellie looked as fabulous as--nay, more fabulous than--Lady Mary.

366 Bow Ties: Day 7

Bow ties on Saturdays are going to be tricky. It was incredibly warm for January, perfect for my boy Owen's backyard birthday party. So I picked something that was kind of summery, but not seersucker or linen.
This used to be called the Patrick when it was a reversible bow tie with another fabric on the reverse. Get this for St Patrick's Day. Madras and bold, but not "loud". I write from the Chick Fil A playground, which stinks worse than a high school locker room. But the boys can run off their sugar high.
Run over to the store and grab today's tie. More interesting prose promised tomorrow.

366 Bow Ties: Day 6

. Buy it or it's gone.
Found both a corduroy shirt and a knit wool zip-up sweater in the back of my closet--in the "I'm Too Fat For This, But Someday" thrifted pile. Navy and gray gave me another shot at yesterday's Solidarity Palate. The red velvet doesn't really hint at brighter days, though. Instead, it embraces the bleak midwinter and meets its frosty throwdown with a cheap shot of luxury and warm elegance. What is the deal, however, with these ridiculously long sweater sleeves? Tuesday's sweater's sleeves were also much too long, but this is just nuts. I cuffed them 3/4 of the way to my elbow. It's a "detail"--right? Put that on Tumblr...let's start the next big thing.
Ellie tailored these trousers for me this morning. Wow. What a woman. More on this in another post, I hope.

Loving these Made in USA longwings--can't tell who by. But they were affordable!

Happy first Friday of 2012. Go put on a bow tie and head out for some pizza and beer.

Cheers,
Andy

366 Bow Ties: Day 5

This is only sort of contrived. I actually bought Ellie these flowers and carted them home on the bicycle just the other day. And Deacon always asks for "hard bread", so I frequently bring him home baguettes. It was Man Date day for Deacon and me.

Today's bow tie is a simple gray chambray in diamond point; one of our best sellers.  Not as rugged as the denimesque blue chambray from Day 3.  I decided, on this sunny and warm winter Carolina day to symbolize my solidarity with those suffering from the gloom of SADD in the grimly gray and icy blue Chirstmasless Ohio snow belt. Gray and blue from head to toe. Seems boring and nearly monochromatic. But what adds interest (to me anyway) is the textural variance: narrow-wale gray corduroys, blue/white university stripe oxford button down, grosgrain ribbon navy & white watch band, gray herringbone jacket, soft cotton gray socks, and our gray chambray bow tie.

Two details remind us that, even for an Ohioan, the sun does in fact exist, even if it can't be seen for 6 months. First, a silk orange floral pocket square, peeking out of the herringbone breast pocket like an apocalyptic sunrise. Second, a horse hoof pick belt I scored at a new local consignment store for just a few bucks the other day. This actually may be the most contrived thing on this post, as I have no clue how a horse hoof pick is actually used, or any interest in things equestrian. (I'm more of a Vespa tie bar kind of guy.)

I got a little something in the mail today. Man's Face Stuff Mustache Wax, made in Portland, Oregon. Gin and Tonic scent for me, please. While I'm being ambitious here in the first days of 2012, I figured, why not try a handlebar mustache? We'll see. Even if the mustache is ugly, it serves as a yummy smell holder just beneath my sniffer. No guts, no glory, right?

And really, that's the kind of chutzpah that's called for to be a bow tie wearer. You've got to take neither yourself, nor the people who think you're a big dork, very seriously. That's the way I look at it, anyway. "Yes, I have a piece of cloth knotted up in a bow around my neck. Yes, I know that's kind of silly. But so is life, sometimes."

Get this very gray chambray bow tie for just $29.  You never know--I might throw a baguette and some flowers in for free.

Cordially,
Andy

366 Bow Ties: Day 4

Isn't a bow tie enough? Why add a kelley green cardigan? is it St. Patrick's Day? Or did you have a Guinness in the shower instead of coffee this morning?

To answer your question, a bow tie is definitely enough. I wouldn't normally be so peacocky. But the problem is, I have a green cardigan, which I like a lot, and I'm doing this thing where I have to wear a bow tie every day. I'm already foregoing neckties for 366 days. I'm not going to add kelley green cardigans to the abstention list.

Hence, outfit.

The bow tie is the Malcolm, rendered in Club Diamond (a punchy bow tie cut, of course. Consistency!). It's silk tweed. Which makes it, and you--if you buy it--automatically awesome.

The Malcolm is available regularly on our store for the affordable price of $29. But this one, and this one alone is available for the throwback Cordial Churchman price of just $23.

With all that punchiness up top, it's brown from the waist down. Except for the socks, of course, which goes without saying.

366 Bow Ties: Day 3

Today's bow tie is also one-of-a-kind.  It's a leftover from a batch we made a little over a year ago from scruffy blue chambray, most of which were diamond pointed and ended up going to Times Square and the Meatpacking District where Levi's promptly sold out of them.  I stumbled upon a butterfly version and decided it called for an old cable-knit navy sweater I also just rediscovered in the back of my closet.

I had the privilege of a BBQ lunch meeting with a cordial churchman and friend. This gent has a doctorate, and has just recently finished reading the entirety of an even more cordial churchman, mutual teacher, and friend's 7 volume history of preaching.  Needless to say, I was all ears when he offered some constructive criticism on Sunday's sermon.

Bill Spoon's Barbecue was delicious, and delightfully low-brow, as all such joints should be.

I moved on to a more high-brow Charlotte establishment, the one and only Fairclough & Co. Clothiers.  I managed to avoid the Alden shoes and got off pretty cheap, relatively speaking (see below).

I am always more and more impressed with Charlotte.  I know it's not supposed to have any character, history, and soul.   So maybe I'm shallow.  But Charlotte is great.

I was on a no-jeans-because-jeans-are-for-manual-laborers kick for a while, and actually went an entire year without ever wearing blue jeans.  It started by accident, and then became a stupid personal challenge.  What was I thinking?  I'm compensating now by wearing the Gold Standard almost every day.

The real test of any bow tie is:  when you un-do it at 6:00pm as you're greeting your wife at the door, does she think you're hot stuff?  Causation is pretty hard to prove around here, being as Ellie makes the things herself--she could just be admiring her own work.  But once you take the baby off her hands and disappear, you instantly become hot stuff---but especially with a bow tie.  Make sense?  I'm rambling.  The point is: buy this only-one-of-it's-kind-left blue chambray bow tie today, or it's gone forever (unless we happen upon more of this fabric).

Right: so, about how I escaped from Fairclough:  With this.  Genuine man.  Perhaps even Old Man (all the better).  There were some sissy scents available that Ellie might have liked better.  But at the end of the day, you've got to go with Bay Rhum.  Can you believe the packaging on this thing?  A wax seal?  That paper!?  That crown?  Glad I finally got me some.  I'm inhaling right now.  It smells legit.

Cheers until tomorrow.

-Andy

PS--Sorry about the whole Andy-standing-with-Ray-Bans-in-front-of-buildings flavor of this post.

PSS---Sorry also for the hyphenate-the-crap-out-of-everything flavor of this post.

366 Bow Ties: Day 2

Used to be a beautiful scarf from The Hill-Side. Now, its a beautiful bow tie. Until The Hill-Side starts making bow ties, I'm sure they won't object to your buying their scarves and having The Cordial Churchman convert them.

Went out to my buddy's family farm in McConnels, SC today with another good friend. Had bacon and peanut butter paninis and talked about the beauty of polycultures.

There was something enjoyable about walking around avoiding animal dung in my Weejuns.  I narrowly avoided having January 2nd's bow tie ingested by the lovely beast in the foreground.  (They both also made a pass at my Kent Wang pocket square, which Ellie gave me for Christmas last year.)  Today's bow is  available in our store, but is utterly gone--poof--forever, once it's sold. But you won't be nearly so sad as I will be to see this once-worn linenesque cotton beauty go.

Plans to give away all the proceeds are coming together nicely. We are excited to tell you more once everything's in place.

Happy bow tying.

EDIT: How could I have forgotten to post the photo of the peanut butter & bacon panini?  Thanks, Erin from A Low Country Wedding for reminding me of the glory that was that sandwich!

366 Bow Ties: Day 1

Happy New Year!

Today is Day 1 of 366 consecutive days in which I will be wearing one of The Cordial Churchman's own handcrafted bow ties. Every day of 2012, I'll wear a new, different bow tie handmade by us here in Carolina.

This means that we'll be pulling old ill-fitting shirts out of the back of the closet, raiding my necktie vault, and grabbing every piece of interesting fabric we can get our hands on to make 366 different bow ties.

And of course, sometimes--like this morning, for instance--I'll simply raid The Cordial Churchman studio and grab a bow tie that's available in our store.

But either way, you'll have a chance to purchase the Bow Tie of the Day for yourself, whether it be a unique one-of-a-kind piece, or whether it be one of our best selling ties. It will come to you, authenticated with the date it appeared in this project. You'll be the envy of all your bow tie aficionado friends.

What a frivolous, perhaps even narcissistic, New Years Resolution, you might be thinking. Well, besides the fact that I don't believe one should ever feel obligated to apologize for rocking a bow tie, there's another angle on this. We're still ironing out the details, but The Cordial Churchman will be donating the proceeds from the sale of each Bow Tie of the Day to an exciting, reputable charity that changes the lives of impoverished young people in the developing world. It's our hope to give away $10,000 this year. More details to come.

In the mean time, spread the word. Keep your eyes peeled for daily posts. Interact with other shameless bow tie enthusiasts on our Facebook page. Follow the insanity on my Tumblr. Grab hold of The Cordial Churchman's Twitter feed. Keep up with the project on Instagram (@arstager).

This is going to be a difficult project. It's going to be hard not to wear neckties for a whole year. It's going to be tough to only wear some of my favorite bow ties once this year. (Like the Theodore diamond-point herringbone wool with mohair I wore today. A friend asked me if I had a white dog. I gave him a textile education.) But this is going to be loads of fun.

Cheers,

Andy

A Crazy Idea Brewing

We're putting together a crazy idea. It may or may not involve someone wearing a different Cordial Churchman bow tie every single day of 2012.

In the mean time, a bow tie for Boxing Day 2012.