Bow Ties Sydney, Australia - Le Noeud Papillon - Specialists In Self Tying Bow Ties


With over 2 million page views, Le Noeud Papillon's blog continues to provide lovers of bow ties with unique stories and content relating to menswear through interviews with industry icons and vignettes into topics relating to suits, shirts, shoes, ties, designers, weavers and much more.

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Thursday, March 14, 2019

It's Time To Scent Up And Spruce The Goose Coming Into Autumn


In summer in Australia there is a period in which I walk around bare footed and in board shorts. I only don in a suit if I have to go into the city for a meeting. I cut my silks with no t-shirt on and I have no intention to be seen in clothes unless I am doing a private appointment in the Studio. It just gets too muggy for someone like me. It's also the reason I like to swim Bondi at 540am each morning, anything to cool me down.

However, now that autumn approaches I am working on my new wardrobe and I am considering heavier scents that are more masculine and no longer relying on scents that smell like sun tan lotions or tropical holidays. The inclement weather also is dictating more robust foot wear and finally I can wear some penny loafers without feeling like my feet are being choked. 

It's time to reconsider your options. It's time to start thinking about what you want to look like in winter, and what you want to smell like.

In terms of scents, I highly recommend Charvet Cuvee Special and Creed Original Vetiver. As for shoes, take a look at Ebay sellers like these ones:

  1. Ascot Shoes
  2. Rafael Network
  3. Shoes Of Distinction
  4. Sausages 234

You will find that Australian men have a limited amount of choice in good footwear outside the luxury brands such as Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton which have their own stores in Sydney. Department stores and multi brand stores like Harrolds also have a limited range of footwear for men. Searching Ebay for the unusual and the hard to find it far more fruitful and in the case of many of the sellers they are not only very responsive but they get very good feedback from those that use them. It's a practical tip if you know your size, if you do not, it's best to try on shoes and check them for both length and width in both Italian and English shoe sizes before you start your hunt. And you also, especially in the case of English shoes, need to understand your grading in terms of width of shoes in the lasts which are ordinarily graded E, F and G from memory. 



New Bow Ties Are Online And There Is 80% OFF By Midnight


There is something so satisfying about finishing a batch of bow ties and loading them up onto the website because it's very lonely work in the lead up to it. Suddenly when it's all done and loaded you and I sent out the progressive discount codes, customers from around the world start sending me Whatsapps and emails to ask questions as they start to load their shopping baskets. If I have done my job well, I get paid at RRP, if I haven't, well, thems the apples. Yesterday I visited a barrister in his Sydney chambers and he showed me his collection of Le Noeud Papillon Sydney bow ties and it was like taking a trip down memory lane. I was proud to know that my work did not go unnoticed and at least for this particular gentleman, and I say that because he truly was a gentle man, I was somewhat important to him because he tied something I put my hand to in the making of almost every day of the week, even, sometimes I imagine, on Sundays. It's a nice thought, one which inspires you to keep going. And don't forget the sale codes. They are live on the website. Time to get busy and load that basket, but don't wait too long or you might miss out. Sale ends 9am tomorrow. 

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Takis Giannetos - Keeping Alive Bespoke Tailoring In Athens


In late December I arrived in Athens for the first time in winter. I had zero knowledge of what I might find other than the city that I knew of as a place you went to for a few days in the height or at the end of summer as you made your way to the islands. 

It is a romantic city and I highly recommend you go in the middle of winter for it was to me more charming than I'd anticipated and it was nice to walk on those marbled streets without the heat being unbearable and the rubber of your sole heating up so much you couldn't wait to get off the sidewalk. 

Athens in the middle of winter was thriving. The bars were full of uber Athenians, they seemed so much more evolved than some of the older style Greeks and Greek families of Australia. In fact, someone had once said to me something very amusing, and that is when Athenians travel to Australia they are amused that the locals still do dances that are one hundred years old and talk in a lingo that is the equivalent as if we brought Gatsby back and plonked him in a bar in Surry Hills - "I say Old Sport, might I have a mint julep ?". Mostly because many of us Greek Australians have never bothered to live in Greece ourselves and learnt our Greek from our forebears. Personally I am not much chop in Greek, the only thing I inherited was a desire to eat Greek food and make my own spanakopita (I owe a Greek lady in Canberra called Helen Minglis for my recipe, she is known as the Queen Of Spanakopita).

Anyway, I am wasting your time. 

In Kolonaki, which I always thought stood for "Little Bum" which hopefully someone can clarify for me, I met the famous Takis Giannetos.

The shop is charming, located just above street level and you press on a buzzer to be let in. It's not a big space and it resembles something that's a hybrid between a workroom and a retail space. Quality wise they use most of the common bunches of wool and they sell a fair bit of VBC's Drapers wool. Most of the clientele are after wedding suits and the predominant work that was ready for collection was velvet jackets with satin lapels. But in the summer they do a fair bit of light blue wool suits and white jackets for black tie weddings.

There was not that kind of attention to detail or artisan touch that you come to expect from their Italian counterparts but I am inclined to think that Giannetos makes a sturdy suit that won't be coming apart anytime soon. And whilst some of the styles were not to my exact taste, one of the things you can kind of get from visiting a bespoke tailor is some sort of portal into the taste and design aesthetic of the people, albeit via the taste of the wedding market more specifically.

As for Takis, he was dressed very well in my opinion. More conservative than much of what was coming off the line. He wore a box check, sky blue shirt, navy grenadine tie and a woollen cardigan with an understated pochette. It was not what I'd have expected of an Athenian but then I am not entirely sure I would know what to expect of an Athenian.

Sadly, like all cities, Athens was over-run on all the high streets by the exact same labels you find in airports and major cities all over the world. I am kind of craving that eventually someone opens a stand-alone store and says "you can only get there here, that's it, no other store, so either come to our city and see us or go online, but that's it". 

There are not many left. Bijan, which was solely on Rodeo Drive, is now expanding to multiple locations. Turnbull & Asser to some extent is like that with London and New York. Gaziano & Girling. Charvet. 

I have grown bored of walking through airports seeing the same old high brow brands with their fancy interiors displaying the same product you saw in Rome, then in Paris, then at the airport in Singapore.... which is why I like going into smaller businesses like Giannetos, sometimes you find treasures, sometimes you don't, but it's still that aspect of exploration that gives a city personality and a reason to go there. 

















Sunday, March 3, 2019

If You Watch One Menswear Turtorial This Autumn / Spring - Make It This One By He Spoke Style's Brian Sacawa - Who Has Mastered Our Groomsmen's Knot


This is a great video and he's made a fine job of our groomsmen's knot and kudos to you Brian. I've never made a video even remotely as well crafted! 


I Never Get It


Our dinner shirt in medium is featured on the model, who is in fact my god brother. He's a handsome guy but as he's aged he's become too conceited and talked to me other day like I was a washed out middle aged nobody. And the truth hurt :) . But what I don't understand is how a dinner shirt that looks that good, albeit he needs the arms taken up a little, doesn't seem to sell on our website even when we are on sale. It's no trouble to sell them when the customer visits the Studio in Sydney but somehow buying them online seems a bridge too far for our regulars. Honestly, you are missing out. 




Bespoke And Custom Made Bow Ties In Australia - It's What We Do


The other evening I got a call from a customer in Adelaide requesting a white bow tie for an orchestra commitment on the weekend. It was Wednesday. So I cut a white grosgrain straight away, had my seamstress sew it an hour later and had it in a TNT bag by 10am the following morning and delivered to Adelaide by Thursday.

To my knowledge there is nobody stocking white grosgrain silk in Australia. To my knowledge there is nobody left who can cut silks individually for bow ties that remains. To my knowledge there is nobody in Australia that can cut and make a bow tie in a matter of hours. If they can, then it is highly doubtful that they have the silks required to make a fine one.

In short, we do. And we love to do that work. Below are two speedy orders we processed this week and if you want to see what else we are working on right at the minute, see our instagram.

Need something in a New York minute, contact us on Whatsapp +61413140994





Robb Report Australia : The Nicolas Bijan Interview - Out Now On Newsstands


Last year around this time I was in a very dark place. I had just finished a stint of skiing and I was on my way to Los Angeles to interview Nicolas Bijan at his famous yellow boutique on Rodeo Drive. Privately I was dealing with a number of matters all acting like a pressure cooker on me. Throw into that a side romance that had all the hallmarks of a jazz song. In fact, come to think of it, it reminds me of one in particular.

"It was just one of those things
Just one of those crazy flings
One of those bells that now and then rings
Just one of those things
It was just one of those nights
Just one of those fabulous flights
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
Just one of those things
If we'd thought a bit 'bout the end of it
When we started painting the town
We'd have been aware that our love affair
Was too hot not to cool down
So good bye, dear, and amen
Here's hoping we meet now and then
It was great fun
But it was just one of those things"

And there I was in Hollywood, depressed in my hotel room feeling like I was having the whole world say no to me but still Instagramming as though I had it all together. Privately I was really really down a rabbit hole.

And somehow in that moment I conducted a fun interview with Nicolas Bijan. The space was light, he was young, there was change in the air and the sky seemed the limit. And it's often the case in my experience of life; that sometimes, in those moments of great pressure from all sides, that these little pearls emerge, no different to that fling, one of those bells that now and then rings. 

A year later, looking back, it seems dream like now. Everyone has moved on, including Nicolas Bijan, who in enacting the very business plan he espoused to me on that sunny morning on Rodeo Drive. 

The article is now out in Robb Report and you need to go down to your newsagent and get a copy. I have already bought out most of them in the eastern suburbs of Sydney to hand out to friends. 

I thank again the editor, Michael Stahl, for green lighting the interview. As is with our agreement, the the original text will be posted to the blog in three months time. But I suggest you get a copy of the Robb Report, it is jam packed with great content. 











Beware The Ties Of March - The Latest Window From Australian Artist Peter Howard

Peter Howard is a local resident of Vaucluse, Sydney where our Studio is situated. Every now and then, perhaps two to three times a year, he paints a canvas for our window. This is the first canvas for 2019. The theme I asked him for was The Ides Of March but switching out Julius Caesar for Donald Trump. The result was so intelligent and so amusing that it's caught the eye of many local residents. Yesterday morning I heard some chatter outside of the Studio and a grandfather was telling his grandson what was depicted in the painting. I walked outside to talk to the person, thinking that I ought to explain what it was, only to find it was one of Australia's more well known businessmen, David Gonski . I presumed to not having anything more insightful to add than he'd already know and he turned to me and said "it's very clever" and kept moving. It was not of course my painting, I merely instructed Peter with the theme. Later still in the afternoon, another well known lawyer and one of Sydney's more prominent journalists were guffawing in the window and also found it amusing. So it was worth a blog post. I wish to thank Peter, over the years he's done so many wonderful canvases for the window but this certainly is his more amusing. You can follow him on www.instagram.com/peterhoward1000 - and yes, he loves taking new commissions. 


Vaucluse resident Peter Howard with his canvas "Beware The Ties Of March"