Sunday, September 24, 2006

Autumn Leaves Number One

Today is the day after the autumnal equinox, and the day before my birthday. Which makes it an interesting day from my perspective, but especially because we are now "officially" in the autumn season, also known as "fall" because of the falling of leaves from deciduous trees which occurs at this time of year.

What it means for my tie blog is that finally I can begin displaying one of my favorite subcollections, specifically, my collection of vintage ties that depict the leaves of autumn. And here is the first, one of my favorites.

I love the busy repeated pattern of parallel lines of varying lengths which makes up the background of the tie. I also love the curving strip of golden orange color that sweeps down the center of the tie, and of course I especially enjoy the colorful leaves which tumble down and spill off that central strip.

This tie also has a brocade pattern woven into the fabric, which may be difficult to see in the scanned image. It is a geometrical pattern of blocks of squares, four to a block, that is seemingly almost antithetically opposed to the free wheeling and abstract nature of the design of the tie itself.

And what is that dark brown colored fabric up in the left corner, you might well ask. What indeed? This tie is one of those that changes color where the knot would have been tied. If my scanner had a larger bed, and I could show a few more inches of the tie, you'd see it abruptly change to the solid chocolate brown color that instead, is shown in the upper left. From the tip of the tie, to the change in color, is almost precisely 15 inches.

This tie has no lables to transcribe, and I've had it for a long time, so long that I no longer recall when or where or how I obtained it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Impossible, since I get to wear it, and you can only see this picture of it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have so many vintage autumn leaves ties, too. I wouldn't doubt if I have at least one identical to yours.

Anonymous said...

First of all...
Hope you had a happy birthday!

Interesting that the other commentator remarked on vintage ties with autumn leaves.

I've noticed that among my vintage ties. Here is a tentative theory I put forward recently -

http://neckties.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!888F7846604F191B!507.entry

I have several older neckties with patterns of autumn leaves. I suppose that the warm shades of a cooler season (which we don't really have here in central Florida) were more comfortably masculine than the muted pastels of spring.

Will said...

Jim,

Thanks for your comment. If you find a tie identical to mine, please check to see if it has has any labels. I'd love to be able to add manufacturer label info to my entry, if your tie by chance still retains labels. That holds true not just for this tie, but for any others I might post that you have in your collection.


Michael,

Thanks for the birthday wish! And thanks for your comment, and theory about autumn ties. I'll be posting autumn ties from now until winter, I imagine, and even so, I won't get them all posted, given my one a week policy. So I'll still have some for next year.