Sunday, January 07, 2007

Purple and Rose Thirties Era

It's been one full year since I began my vintage tie blog! Hard to believe. One tie a week for a year, except for one week when I didn't have time to post. I haven't actually counted, but I assume that means 51 ties.

I just went and checked the calendar. It appears that there were 53 Sundays in 2006, which should mean that I posted 52 ties last year. I'm not going to take the trouble to go through my entire blog and count up. I guess I could just go to my blog stats in my account and look there! But not while I'm writing a post.

Last year, New Year's Day fell on a Sunday, so I began this blog appropriately on January 1. So last Sunday was actually closer to being the anniversary date, being it was December 31. But it was also still in 2006. This is the first 2007 vintage tie posting.

Well enough with the self-congratulatory prose, and on with the ties! I've decided that for a while, at least, in 2007 I'm going to jump back a decade, and feature some of my 1930's era ties, of which this is the first.

How do I know whether a tie is from the thirties, as opposed to the forties? I don't, really, other than kind of by instinct and hints from what I've seen here and there. Going by what I've seen, ties in the thirties were a little more conservative in appearance, typically a little narrower (this tie is about 3 1/2 inches at its widest point, for example), and less obviously flashy in design. Yet no less elaborate. When you look at this tie closely, you find an ornate almost quilted design with beautifully colored fabrics with an almost gem-like quality to them.

The real colors on this particular tie were difficult to scan accurately. The large stylized leaf shaped objects are really a deep, beautiful plum-purple color which doesn't come through well in the scan. The background is a lovely rosy shade of pink which is fairly accurate on screen. And embedded in it are the small jewel-like shapes of pale blue, silver and plum. The overall effect is incredibly ornate and almost three-dimensional in effect. But you have to get up close to the tie to perceive all of the detail. From a distance, it doesn't splash and grab your attention the way a typical forties tie does (like last week's floral starburst just below).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Having nothing to do with wonderful ties it appears I am from your home town. In fact, my first memory (six months old?) was of looking down at the river from the old stone bridge. The ties are also incredible.