Tie a Day, Number 90

Jerry Garcia is best known as the lead singer for the group the Grateful Dead, but it seems that he also studied visual art. I must assume that he created many different paintings and prints during his life because there is a line of ties out that bears his name. On Monday I wore a Jerry Garcia tie to display as many colors as I could.

I chose to wear this tie because of the bright colors that reminded me of my recent trip to Atlantis. Purple, blue, black, yellow, orange and brown are all in there. This tie has the appearance of being tessellated, but in truth, I could not match up parts of it as repeating. There is enough similarity to give you the feeling of tessellation, but enough variance in the design to make you keep looking.

While on my spring vacation at Atlantis, I went window shopping. My recent interest in ties prompted me to look at ties in the shops located in the resort. I wandered into the Ferragamo store wearing my best $12 summer casual shirt, neatly ironed, and went straight to the ties that were hanging innocently on the wall.

I am not sure what I expected to find, but I was curious how much one of the ties cost. I almost choked when when I saw the $160 price tag! I think I was looking at this tiny fish patterned tie. The ties were interesting and beautiful, but way out of my price range.

I don't think I have ever bought a tie for myself. My ties are all gifts and hand-me-down's from my father. I know that my father bought many ties when he worked at Franco's in Richmond, VA, that I currently own, but I don't think he ever paid nearly that much for a tie. Although Franco's does have some expensive ties...

I guess, besides the well known fact that I have no fashion sense, I discovered that I am cheap, or at least that I will never pay $160 for a tie. After all, a tie like that would be incompatible with my out of style button down shirt, dingy khaki pants and beat up brown shoes with no jacket.

Tie a Day, Number 61

Yesterday, after my fourth day of being trapped in my house because of snow, I decided I had to do something. So I had my hair trimmed (even though it was short, it was sprouting up all over and getting on my nerves) and then I went to Kohl’s. Normally, I just get what I go there for and then I leave, but since I had been holed up in my house for so long, I became fascinated by the most ridiculous things.

In my wanderings I stopped in the tie zone. It was amazing! Approximately 90% of the ties were ugly. Most of the ties were bold and offensive to the eye. Some were similar to the mid 80’s thin ties while others were just odd. The exception to this is the Jerry Garcia collection. I like all of the JG ties.

Plain white ties in both thick and thin flavors? Do men wear this? Where are they? I thought that was a Miami Vice thing from the 80’s…

Part of the problem was that I was seeing the ties standing alone without a friendly shirt to show its best side to the world. The second issue influencing my negative opinion of the tie selection was my complete lack of any kind of a sense of fashion. What do I know about fashion, and really, owning a bunch of ties doesn’t mean I know anything about them.

I only know what I will wear; and it won’t be any of those ties. Besides, me buying a tie is a bit silly when I have around 80 ties left to wear this year.

Today’s tie I picked out alone. Sam must have forgotten about my daily tie needs with the delayed opening and the added confusion of the day being a half a day for students.

This black tie is from the late 80’s and is accented by paisley designs (from my visit to Kohl’s I have gathered paisley is still ok on ties) that are separated by vine like structures. The brown, green, tan and grey in the design goes nice with the black background. Not the greatest tie ever, but I like it and worked. It was just a bonus that it didn’t make me feel like an extra on Miami Vice.