Sunday, September 30, 2007

Acorn Pixies

Continuing a bit of a theme from last week, albeit a somewhat tenuous connection, I present what I'm calling "acorn pixies." Each little green cap surmounts an vaguely acorn shaped head, replete with grinning smiley face! You may not think these look like acorn faces, but that's what they remind me of, so that's what I'm calling them.

So what's the connection to last week? Last week we had oak leaves, with burr covered fruits that seemed like they should have been acorns, but weren't. This week we have what look like little acorn pixes to my sometimes over-vivid imagination.

The rest of the space is filled with black line-drawn vines and leaves. The color scheme uses a bright orange color, certainly suitable for autumn, set off by the black lines, and bright green acorn caps. Certainly a dramatic effect, and a very bright tie, indeed.

In fact, I've yet to figure out a shirt to wear it with. None of my green shirts are quite the right shade. I suppose I'll have to wear it with either a solid black or perhaps a solid white shirt. I try to avoid white shirts, and only own one, for those rare occasions when I'm required to wear one for whatever reason.

Anyway, here's wishing a happy autumn, a pleasant fall season to all of you!

P.S. It's January 1, 2008, and I'm adding a closeup of one of the acorn pixies, cropped and rotated to be more or less right side up, since most of them are upside down or sideways on the tie itself. As soon as I posted the tie, it occurred to me that I should have done this, but somehow I never got around to it until now.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Blue with Silver Oak Leaves

In honor of the first day of autumn, I am posting this tie featuring oak leaves. Leaves always suggest the season of autumn, even if they aren't fall colors, per se, but a lovely combination of deep blue, paler blue and silver, as in this case.

The swirling lines sweeping down the tie suggest that the leaves are falling from the trees, or being blown by the winds of autumn, furthering the impression of fall.

I may be able to post another autumnal tie or two in coming weeks, but nothing like last year, when I featured extensively from my collection of ties featuring autumn leaves. I'm afraid I've mostly exhausted this aspect of my collection. Just look at my 2006 September (the last tie that month), October, and November postings to refresh your memory.

I always thought this tie was oak leaves and acorns, but now that I look a bit more closely, those don't look like acorns at all. I asked my wife what they were and she said dahlias, or chrysanthemums. I don't find that answer satisfactory, because if that's what they are, they aren't to scale with the oak leaves. The leaves are too large, or the flowers too small, one or the other.

I suppose they could be some other kind of nut that has a prickly covering. I'm not aware of any acorns that have a covering like this although I suppose it's not impossible. I read (and blogged) William Bryant Logan's fascinating little volume on the Oak tree, but don't recall enough detail to remember if he discussed anything like this.

The tie also has a nice brocade, but I'm not sure what it represents. There are sort of scroll-like framing elements, enclosing vaguely rectangular spaces, inside which are groupings of three dots, in a vaguely floral arrangement. I don't think you can see it very clearly in the scanned image, just hints of something behind the primary design.

The tie has one extant label to transcribe:
Arrow
Made in U.S.A.
All Silk

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Green and Red Horror

Now this is my idea of an ugly tie! Kind of a sickly olive green color combined with bright red. Ugh! Not my idea of an attractive color combination. If anyone out there disagrees, offer me 20 bucks plus $5 shipping, and this beauty (I mean horror) is yours!

Now the design isn't so bad. I like the big stylized floral shape, similar to the "rosettes," as I termed them, from a few weeks ago. And the wavery red lines crosshatching the larger portion of the tie, seemingly hand drawn, with occasional breaks and gaps--now that's a nice design touch.

The red and green checkerboard, now that I could do without, especially as the color printing doesn't stay very well within the lines. Was this a deliberate design element, or a flaw due to cheap design execution? Who knows. The shadow knows! (But not me).

I think you would have a good chance of winning an ugly tie contest with this monstrosity. It looks to me like the kind of tie a used car salesman might have worn, or perhaps a Willie Loman type. Somebody a bit down on his luck.

The tie also demonstrates that it was probably not a top of the line model by the fact that there is no brocade woven into the fabric, as the fancier, nicer ties generally have. Of course, I don't really know that only the more expensive ties had brocaded fabrics; I wasn't born yet when the ties on this blog were manufactured and sold. It's all supposition on my part. Intelligent (I hope) guesswork.

This tie IS all silk, however, so it couldn't have been TOO cheap, I suppose. The tie has both its original labels, which read as follows:

Northern Commercial Co.
Anchorage, Alaska
and
Fashion Craft
Cravat
All Silk

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Pale Yellow, Pale Peach on a Deep Brown Background

The title I assigned to this post just about says it all. Colorwise, anyhow. So what do I call the shapes on this tie? Three-cornered stars? Three-petaled flowers?

There is probably a proper name for this shape, but I don't know what it is. My wife thinks they look like stylized rocket ships sitting on the launch pad about to take off.

But I have no idea how to describe the black and white figures that fill the center of each pattern. They look like little bits of barbed wire, or maybe like brain cell dendrites, or little black bugs sharing their legs with one another.

Be sure to notice the fabric brocade which permeates the background of the tie. Some sort of stylized floral pattern, perhaps rosebuds, or tulips, or something, with tiny little five-petaled rosettes floating around them.

The tie has two labels. Both are sewed into the narrow end of the tie. The first is printed on black fabric, on which the script has faded so as to be almost unreadable, unless you hold it at just the right angle under a bright light. It reads
Leonard's
Men's Wear
Hayward, Calif.
The other label reads
SUPERBA
All Silk

Monday, September 03, 2007

Brown and Silvery Blue Eggs

Here's a nice 4 1/4 inch specimen. I'm calling them eggs for lack of any better descriptive term. The groups of nine tannish brown circular objects, which appear to be embedded into the surface of the tie reminded me of nice brown eggs, nestled into some kind of container.

Of course they are surrounded by many more objects of the same shape which do not resemble eggs at all, what with their concentric rainbow shaped patterns, surrounding a central dot in each.

If you look closely, you will notice that the gray blue egg shaped grouping has less than 100% accurate color printing, with a small strip of each of the top row eggs lacking the blue color. I don't have any idea if this was a deliberate effect planned by the designer, or if it is a printing misalignment, or error.

The tie also has a rich brocade pattern embedded in the fabric. You can see it best on the solid colors--on the groups that I'm calling eggs, and on the solid brown portions of the tie. The brocade pattern resembles bits and pieces of a slashing sunburst design shape.

The tie has the label "Haband" printed directly into the fabric on the reverse of the large end of the tie. I've made a closeup scan of this label for your edification, enlightenment or entertainment, depending on your point of view or inclination.