This May Sound Arrogant... But We Need To Discuss Mr Porter's Tie Collection

This morning I trawled Mr Porter - the new men's website from net-a-porter. I specifically was looking at their tie range http://www.mrporter.com/Shop/Accessories/Ties - which I thought, personally, was appalling.

The site itself is pretty good in conceptualisation. The white backgrounds make for clear viewing and where other sites have those garish zoom buttons so you cannot download the image but you can see it in high res by rolling over parts of it, Mr Porter has clear downloadable images on the site which I think is EXCELLENT. The reason being is that if someone is considering a purchase, they can come back to the image on their desktop and not necessarily have to go through the rigmarol of logging in etc. An example of a site that could take that concept to their own online shopping cart is Smythson of London http://www.smythson.com. Smythson fall down by not having this available on their shopping cart and making navigation burdensome and tiresome as every time you roll over an image it starts blowing up in front of you. Very annoying.

I was quite suprised to see that they only stocked a limited range of not so amazing looking bow ties. The one that I did like, however, was Alexander McQueen's skull bow tie which I would like to say is not as good as my own 'Memento Mori' design http://www.lenoeudpapillon.com/collection.php?idProduct=106 . Surprisingly, the only other bow ties they offered were Drakes (old hat, not very progressive), Ralph Lauren (always preppy) and Lanvin. I wrote them an email to suggest they ought to stock my bows but I envisage they won't be in a rush to contact me. They seem to concentrate on known international brands. I have struggled to find an English retailer which will take on my product, which is surprising considering the healthy margin for retailers, the small size of the box and the quality of my product and packaging. I would actually venture to say, arrogantly, that I am one of the top 4 suppliers of bow ties in the world. I won't tell you who I hold in higher esteem - but I will admit there are others who equal the quality of silks that I use and the quality of design and thought in their product. Nonetheless, the English have put up a fight - perhaps something as genteel as a bow tie could not possibly come from the colony????

So, below I am going to give you a screen grab of the new Mr Porter site, followed by the McQueen bow which I like and a pair of shoes I will consider buying in the next week by the Car Shoe Company.

Above: Never been a fan of these clasps. They are used by Charvet as well. They serve a great purpose, namely, that  you may tie your own bow tie and then keep the knot as it is and unfasten the bow by these clasps so you don't have to tie it the next time if you are pressed for time. However, when the clasp is designed like this it easily unfastens, so you run the risk if you are still on the d-floor with your bow undone, of losing one half of the bow to the parquet - and walking out of the party so loose that you don't realise you will have to buy another bow tie before your next event.