Striped Ties

A few weeks ago, we published a couple of posts about ties. Catching sight of his own ties on the rack, your correspondent was moved to think briefly about striped ties.

The most obvious use for a striped tie is the regimental, school, college or club affiliation. Useful, if you need to be recognised as belonging to something or somewhere, but difficult if you buy one, wear it, and did not belong to said regiment, college or other association. A little research reveals that a genuine regimental (“rep” for “representative”) tie has the stripes going from top left to bottom right. Rumour has it that it was first worn as an accessory at the Oxford – Cambridge boat race, by Exeter College students or alternatively by the I Zingari cricket club. In the American version, the stripes go from top right to top left. Is there a conspiracy at work? Probably not.

Avoiding actual rep ties, what do we have? A lot of variety and choice. Something like this, from Ben Silver, is a good alternative to the plain tie, with triple stripes in contrasting width, and a simple colour scheme.

Image: Ben Silver Woven Ties

Alternatively, this sort of stripe – quite bold, block stripes – gives you the chance for some colour variety. And these ties are obviously not regimental, in the strict sense of the word.

You can also have multiple (“fancy”) stripes, like these, in different colour palettes: in this case grey, cream and light brown. Not too loud, this type of design might be over the top if they were using bright blues and reds, for example.

Image: Otis and Oliver

Finally, this type of tie, with muted strips in graded colours, is probably our favourite. It gives you different colours without looking like the tie of some imaginary regiment.

Image: Fumagalli1891

As a variation, vertical stripes are possible. Never as popular as diagonal stripes, vertical stripes a little bold (raffish, even), vertical stripes are probably best left for the evening and the pool hall. That said, your correspondent has a few.

Image: The Tie Guys

Then there are horizontal stripes. These are best with a narrower tie, normally have a squared end, and are often knitted or done in grenadine style.

Image: Bows-n-Ties

What to wear with your striped ties?

The difficulty of striped ties is that they limit your choices in shirts and jackets. A tie with wide stripes might go with a narrow striped or faint striped or check shirt, but ideally you want to wear a plain shirt with a striped tie and keep the coat stripes muted if the tie has loud stripes.