Bow Ties

Cam is the cutest! He wrote to me recently about the quirky fabulousness that is bow ties. Here’s what he said,

Can you please talk about bowties for us menfolk? I have recently rediscovered them and love them. What guidelines and suggestions would you offer? How about some advice mixing patterns between shirt, bowtie, and sweater or suit?

Here’s Cam already totally rocking the bow tie and OWNING it:

First of all, you can’t stick a bow tie on someone who isn’t generally snappy and well-groomed or it looks especially awful. After all, a bow tie is inherently an old-school accessory that evokes a more sophisticated sartorial age, which is why hippie-type dudes wearing bow ties at events make me want to run and hide in the janitor’s closet lest I blurt out something very unkind. A bow tie on a hippie-type guy is not just a fashion problem, it is a veritable CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS and my poor weak heart cannot take it.

So let’s set down some truth about bow ties and what they communicate:

1. Bow ties communicate a variety of things:

I am dapper, serving up some Beau Brummel realness.
I am preppy and/or academic, bringing you a “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” Dean of Students vibe.
I am creative, wearing a bow tie to signal that I am Not Of The Corporate World.
I am wearing a tuxedo and this is what a person in a tux should be wearing.

Bow ties can look good on anyone so long as that someone is well-groomed and prepared to deal with the kind of unconscious reaction elicited by a bow tie. No guy under eighty wears a bow tie who hasn’t thought about that decision. It’s a non-conformist accessory and one that requires a certain panache, a certain quality of “pulling it off.” Again, unless you’re an elderly gent, in which case it’s just part of your style.

I think Cam wears a bow tie beautifully. It’s fun, he’s smiley and warm and appealing in it, and I love that he’s paired his with a sweater vest (such a good idea for a shorter and broader male or trans persons for whom a sports jacket can so easily fit badly and unflatteringly).

Notice how the shape of Cam’s spectacles and the shape of his bow tie mirror each other? That’s just a great visual trick that focuses my eye on his face. The proportion of both these accessories is SO important : in the photo where Cam has mixed patterns (the muted charcoal argygle vest and the bright, patterned bow tie), my eye goes right to his face because the bow tie and the glasses keep my focus there.
If his vest was the more eye-catching color or pattern, it would upstage his face completely. He has done a fantastic job here of dressing in handsome, beautiful colors with subtle pattern and then bringing that pop of color right where he wants the enter of attention to be. Because the bow tie is also well-proportioned — not clownishly large or dinky and small (ridiculous on anyone, but particularly bad choice for a heavy-set person), he looks elegant AND interesting. Well played, young man.

And then there’s always the “I love this accessory and so I’m totally happy to be wearing it” factor, which lends any of us an unmistakeable confidence. Cam, the only suggestion I would offer is to have a more formal, conservative option in your closet ready to go. The cardigan or sweater vest and bow tie look can well be your signature, but you want to have something that isn’t so sweet and Care Bearish to pull out when you need to bring the fierce.

Cam asks about mixing patterned garments with patterned bow ties, and he is his best Exhibit A on how to do it well: choose subtle larger patterns than the bow tie’s pattern, and make sure they’re in complimentary color schemes. You don’t want the bow tie to look like a silly afterthought or an act of immature rebellion, as in “You said I had to wear a tie so I picked this stoopit thing.”

And of course a bow tie always works with a classic pin stripe.

Geoffrey Rush is killing me softly in this absolutely fab pin stripe suit, bow tie and chapeau. Oh, and Mr. Firth ain’t half bad, either: