Tie your tie.

To start off - ties are endlessly strange to me. Most menswear (especially on the more traditional side) espouses form and function being intertwined, and yet ties survive without having ANY purpose other than being aesthetically pleasing. They sure as hell won't keep you warm, but I guess they're good for strangling someone.

I made these ties based off of one that a friend gave me from The Hill-side. The brand makes beautiful products but, at $88 per tie, is woefully outside of my price range. Thankfully, they're pretty simple to make, so I reverse-engineered mine and made a few more (with a twist or two, of course).

One is made from the reverse side of some 6 oz raw indigo denim, which ends up looking a bit like chambray. It has a slightly rounded, unfinished edge that gives it an interesting fraying. The other is an Italian linen with the same denim on the back blade, creating a two-tone tie. They're lined with a cotton muslin to give the tie knot some heft (because no one likes a wimpy tie knot).

The keeper and label (which are heavy enough to help with the drape of the tie) are made of leather. The sewn design is pretty much meaningless, but I had just come from the lovely Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA and had his style on my mind. It showed through just a touch.

This was my first experiment with drafting my own pattern and came out reasonably well, I think. Looking forward to expanding my collection with ties made from lots of interesting fabrics.