Ronan Keating Wearing Le Noeud Papillon

We don't really advertise very much that we make ties. It's something we do as an appendage to our bow tie range. Most of our stock is sitting at the Strand Hatters in the Strand Arcade. Nevertheless, here is Ronan Keating at Derby Day, the photo courtesy of Robert Carroll of the Strand Hatters. He is wearing a limited edition black and silver jacquard we did last season.

Baciami Ancora!!!!

For those of you who read my post about being a late starter at finding out about L'Ultimo Bacio, the fantastic film directed by Gabriele Muccino, I have some good news, I have managed to see the sequel without waiting ten years! Baciami Ancora (2010) is a fantastic 10 year follow up film on the same characters from L'Ultimo Bacio. I have so much admiration for Muccino as a director. He doesn't let style get in the way of telling the story and he has managed to capture, for me personally, so much of the disillusionment that people feel as they get older. I felt as though Muccino must have watched the Seven Up series before sitting down to write this film. Whatever inspired him, it is an amazing film and a MUST SEE. Please, if you have time, watch both these films as I promise you it will be very rewarding.

Rope - A New Silk Design From Le Noeud Papillon

Rope - A New Jaquard Woven Silk Design From Le Noeud Papillon Sydney - will be available in November 2011. This design is copyrighted to Le Noeud Papillon Sydney. The design will be available in both navy/white and black/white. Pre-orders can be sent to bow@lenoeudpapillon.com 

What Isn't James Wearing

I really like the way James Andrew describes what he is wearing. Here are the details for this number:

"Enjoying the outrageous beauty of the Liz O’Brien Gallery, I’m sporting a Tom Ford “Country Jacket” in amethyst wool silk tri-color windowpane, glen plaid wool, cashmere tie, black and white silk pocket square and saddle leather loafers, Turnbull and Asser purple cotton shirt with white collar and cuffs, vintage moon stone cuff links, Gucci python belt with silver double horse head buckle, J Brand “Kane” jeans and my fragrance is Creed Windsor."

http://www.whatisjameswearing.com/

An Update On What We Are Up To

For those of you who follow our product lines, I thought I might tell you a little about what we are up to at the moment here at Le Noeud Papillon in Sydney.

WEBSITE

We will be reserving the website solely for men's accessories and have decided to withdraw product lines such as shirts because we have a hands-on approach and we believe that shirts should fit well, and the technology is not yet there to support this in an online world.

We will be adding new lines of products under a label called 'Accessories' over the coming months. We are currently investigating what kind of products we wish to develop and sell, suffice to say that they will be under our own label.

POCKET SQUARES

We recently decided to do our own line of screen printed silk pocket squares. The sunk costs of doing this is quite high. As opposed to digital printing, which can give more detailed prints and flexibility in design, screen printing or corrosive printing as we would preferably undertake, is very expensive and there are huge minimums required to get the ball rolling. This is possible for larger brands to do because they have volume and wider distribution channels, but as we are a small company, such adventures rely on strong sales in our other product lines before we can invest in new techniques. We will keep you posted when we are about to receive our first batch but it looks like they won't be ready until January 2012.

BOW TIES

We have been weaving our own silk designs for some time. Although some of our more basic patterns are catalogue silks that we search for from our silk merchants archives, we generally prefer to weave our own designs so that customers can't find our products anywhere else. The process is rather expensive. First we must  set up our own designs which takes some time and creativity, then when this process is complete the designs are sent to Italy to be translated. The process is costly not only because of the design process we undertake but there are also set up fees in Italy to begin the weaving process. This is the reason we add an additional price to our own limited edition designs, in order to recoup the additional costs in production. Furthermore, the time taken to complete these designs is longer as we have to wait until the correct warp is on the loom before we can proceed. Over the coming weeks we will have four more designs available. After this we will be halting designs of our own silks until the start of 2012.

TIES

A new range of six fold ties which we made in Como, Italy are arriving shortly. Some of the designs are for cocktail wear - such as Parisian Nights - whereas others are catered for city workers. We will be continuing to make ties but as an appendage to our bow tie line which we think defines us as a brand. Our aim, moving forward, is to create conservative business ties rather than cocktail ties, as we feel that there is a small, in fact, tiny gap in the saturated tie market which we think we might fill. However, our aim is not to become a tie maker as this is something we think is done well enough by other brands across the globe that we don't need to intrude.

SHIRTS

We continue to work with customers in the Sydney metropolitan area in creating customised or 'bespoke' shirts. The work is very laborious but extremely rewarding. Our focus is on bringing in fabrics directly from Italy which consumers would not ordinarily be able to acquire off the rack. Our patrons are MOSTLY very happy, however bespoke shirt making is a tricky business and not to be taken lightly. We spend a great deal of time working on correcting our patterns to ensure a very neat well-fitted shirt. In order to reduce some of the time taken, we have developed a made to measure service at the same time, for those customers who don't have the time nor patience for a bespoke service.

SUITS

We vowed never to enter the world of suits, precisely because of our experience with bespoke shirts. However, slowly we have gained the skills to work off a master block and every now and then we are doing a suit, though preferably we have been doing jackets alone. We have concentrated on doing dinner jackets - ones which have an added flair and can be worn with solid colour trousers such as traditional black or midnight blue. Our jackets are made using the finest wools we can source as well as jacquard silks which we have woven in Italy. For us, making a dinner jacket is far more creative and compelling than a suit and a chance for the client to express themselves in a very individual way. Just this week we have completed a midnight blue window pane check from the Holland and Sherry Black Tie Elite book. It was an exceptional jacket and one which I look forward to showing on the blog over the coming weeks.

Well, that is all our news. I hope I didn't bore you and please free to contact us with your questions any time you like. We love hearing from our customers!

Regards,
Nicholas.

Aspinal Of London - Some Fine Choices For Christmas!

I just found some beautiful items I think every man needs in his home, and I found them at Aspinal of London. You could lose a day on this website. Have a look. http://www.aspinaloflondon.com/

Tusting Chellington Bag

Not bad no? I would like this for Christmas. Anyone who wants to present this to me under the tree will get a fat kiss and a nice set of bow ties in return! You can buy it here: http://www.tusting.co.uk/English_Leather_Luggage_TUSTING_Chellington_Leather_Holdall.asp

The Best Wedding Invitation I Have Received

My friend Oliver Watts, an artist who received First Class Honours for Fine Arts at Sydney University and then went on to do a law degree, and then a doctorate in fine arts.... so technically I should call him Dr Watts... decided to finally settle down... only to marry a woman who is equally accomplished, Anna, an ace architect. And when a man like Oli gets married, you can only expect something unorthodox as an invitation. The wonderful etching comes with each invitation. And the invite itself was something I had not seen before, a thick industrial cardboard which they managed to print on with some unorthodox printer they found. How cool.

The Film Sets

Unlike the particularly sophisticated photos I see of bloggers hanging out in the back rooms of Anderson And Sheppard, where the walls are made of timber and racks of suits hang in the background, there is not the same sophistication in the workrooms of Sydney.

If you are lucky enough to know who the real work horses of Sydney's tailored clothing specialists are  then you will know that they sit in industrial estates, or on the side of the road in Leicharddt, or on the fifth dingy floor of a building on Bathurst Street, but never, ever, ever in the manner in which they seem to occur on Savile Row. The last of the big shirt makers in the Sydney CBD recently shut up shop and sold off all their fabric and with it went the last of the big city work rooms. Shame shame, but it is merely a hallmark of the times and the prices per square metre for city commercial real estate.

Today I made my customary pilgrimage to my shirt makers and I sat in his office and made myself a Nespresso and asked him about the state of things. As usual he cried poor, though he is by no means short of a quid, it is just a rudimentary start to any conversation with him to prevent me from ever asking for a discount on my work.

He had in the background the shirts he was working on for The Great Gatsby, a film I had hoped to be involved in, but got pushed aside for a few reasons. Some of which might be my own arrogance and opinionated rants which are not always received the way I intended them to be received. The shirt was in the same vein as Boardwalk Empire, high club collars, pins and another detail which I won't mention. It looked very good. The club seemed to lack curve but the finished product looks good overall. It seemed funny to me to see the size of Nick Caraway's shirt. I know that a lot of Hollywood is short, but it seems to be quite  an epidemic over there. I often wonder if the closer to the studios you actually get, the smaller the people become until you arrive on set only to find a world of pigmies.... or smurfs.

Nevertheless, the shooting of Gatsby has caused a flurry of activity over at the workroom of V____. There you can see racks of clothing hanging up for the actors, waiting to go on set. Not to mention the waistcoats, bow ties and accessories being pumped out of another work room a few kilometres away. When it is all said and done, a film being made in this country is still money for those which can still make things. It is a shame we don't have more artisan garment manufacturing here and more movies and television being made because the both work hand in hand pretty well and give kudos to our countries skills in both disciplines. I was actually a little surprised to see a Brooks Brothers coat hanging up on one of the racks, it seemed a shame that the set of Gatsby was using American clothes and having them altered here. It would have been better if more of the work had stayed local.

A Lavender Marriage

I had never heard this expression until the other night when someone was talking about a Sydney personality and they said, 'sounds like a lavender marriage'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_marriage

Lavender marriage is a type of male-female marriage of convenience in which the couple are not both heterosexual and conceal the homosexual or bisexual orientation of one or both spouses. In gay slang, the heterosexual spouse in a lavender marriage is referred to as a "beard" for a wife.

A Few Things I Found On Mr Porter That I Like

Firstly, I need to tell you that I get nothing out of plugging someone else's website. Mr Porter have done me no favours and don't stock my bow ties. But I am writing this because I have found some wonderful things on their website worth mentioning. Firstly, their website is MR PORTER here - and credit must be given where it is due - they have a clever marketing approach and great packaging. I haven't bought much stuff from the site as yet, but when I have I liked the service. Even when they messed up an order they did everything they could to fix it up. I can safely say that it was John Buckley in their call centre that stopped me from having a hernia.... Below are a few of my picks. 

McQueen Double Breasted Shawl Coat

Charvet Classic Blue White Stripe Shirt - A staple. 

Lanvin Double Breasted Grey Jacket

Ralph Lauren ridiculously expensive cufflinks. I think the only one with enough dough to buy these is Damien Hirst who sold a much larger version to some Russians I believe....

The Melbourne Cup - It's On Again

I am told that part of the reason that the Queen is in town at the moment is to catch the Melbourne Cup down at Flemington. Whether you are into horse racing or not, it is a great event for Australians and the pride of Melbourne. As a token gesture of our appreciation for this event, we are offering 30% off for anyone who is looking for a bow tie for this special day. By entering THECUP into our shopping cart, you will receive 30% off on any purchases you make. Good luck and please see the two bows we recommend for the day below.

For those of you in Melbourne, you can pick up one of our bow ties at either Bourke Street Mall David Jones or else at Leopold's Empire, by contacting Shandor on 03 9662 2095

Guerreisms Posting More Content 'Tagged Men'

http://guerreisms.com/tagged/men 

This guy is so talented. I love coming back to his blog every few weeks. 

Everything You Wanted To Know About Shirts But Were Too Afraid To Ask….

Edge Stitching Versus Foot Stitching:

It’s not often that you take the time to look at the detail. One critical detail that most customer’s overlook is edge stitching versus foot stitching. Edge stitching is where the technician comes as close to the edge of where the fabric of the cuff or collar finishes to stitch the fabric down, usually about 1-2mm. It needs careful workmanship and takes a little longer to finish the shirt. Foot stitching is a faster way to finish a shirt and usually the stitch is set back around 6mm. Whilst edge stitching gives a neater finish, it is not always preferable. Furthermore, depending on the detail of the shirt, some shirts will be better with foot stitching, especially in cases where an alternate colour is being used for the stitching as this detail would be lost as a contrast if edge stitched.

Should I Have White Collar White Cuff?

White collar / white cuff is a magical combination that usually transforms a shirt from dull to bright. The white significantly enhances the colour of the contrast shirt. For example, a light silken blue in our Canclini Rothschild 200 cotton looks fine on its own, but the moment you put white collar and cuff on the same shirt it transforms it and makes it the blue come alive. White collar and white cuff is the best way to show off the contrast stripes or pattern of the cotton you have chosen as a feature. It doesn’t work on all cloths. It doesn’t work as well on gingham, oxfords and patterned shirt fabrics, but it is fantastic on basic stripes and solid block colours. It particularly brings out the colour on pastels such as light blue, baby pink and lilac.

What Sort Of Cuff Should I Look For?

Your cuff should be in tune with your collar. That is the first thing to look out for. It is incongruous to have a pointed long peak collar with a club (rounded) cuff. The cuff is a very important detail because it is something that people tend to look at when you are wearing a jacket and people do notice the subtle details on a cuff before they would notice the body of the shirt when it is cloaked in a jacket.

My favourite cuff is a two button mitred cuff. I don’t work in the city so I don’t need French cuffs to show off my cufflinks. Therefore, I choose a practical cuff which I can use every day, one which I can roll up and down depending on the temperature and what I am working on. So far my favourite happens to be the two button mitred. Whereas the rounded cuff is fantastic for special occasions, I find it to be restrictive in terms of what you can wear it with. It doesn’t seem right to me to have a sharp or slim cut suit and then a rounded cuff.

Dark Coloured Shirts

It is important to look at your complexion before choosing the colour of the cloth you want for a shirt. Because I have a darker skin tone, I prefer to have lighter colours. I have found that when I wear darker colours I feel a little more brooding, a little too serious. For this reason I rarely wear black suits and search for lighter more playful fabrics for shirts. If I am to wear a darker colour, I prefer to steer towards those which have contrasting stripes or to offset the darker colour by having white collar and white cuffs. The last piece of advice I offer is to be careful with grey. Grey is a colour that can really wash a man out if he is not careful as to how he uses it.

Contrast Stitching

This is more of a gimmick for me than something I take seriously. I don’t mind contrast stitching on some shirts, but it can become a little tacky of the contrast is too Mickey Mouse against the chosen cloth. Especially on softer pastels, it looks very odd to see loud contrast stitches used as I have seen on the offerings of some brands.

Layered Collars

I have seen recently the rise of the 2 and three layered collar. Let me be very honest with you, this is a passing trend and be careful if you wish to embrace it because you might be wasting your money. The actual look of these collars is so loud and screams ‘Over here, I’m here!’ that I think it is a ‘buyer beware’. Shirts that last are shirts which don’t stray too far from lines of classicism. Since the economic affairs of the country don’t seem to be getting better, I think it is far better to choose a shirt that you will toss when it is threadbare rather than because of a change in seasonal fashion.

Embroidered Initials – Liver Or Cuff?

I never knew about the initials on the cuff until a Bostonian called Scott Army got a shirt made by me. Until then, I had always had initials on the liver. Increasingly it is becoming more popular to put the initials on the cuff so that when done correctly, the initials on the cuff sit just below the end of the sleeve of the jacket. This was done recently by David Arquette on David Letterman. Personally, I like the way the Italian’s do it on the liver area, about 2 ½ buttons up from the bottom on the left hand side (if you are wearing the shirt). As for the ‘Americana’ way of doing initials? I am now a fan.

Well, I hope some of this might help.

Best wishes,

Nicholas.

Inside Tom Ford's Work Space

Will Boehlke Pulls Out A Romy

This is Will Boehlke from A Suitable Wardrobe and he is wearing a 'Romy' bow tie, which is now discontinued although I might have one somewhere in bow tie storage land... Will, you look tremendous!

Nicol - An Alternative To Black

Nicol is named after a bespoke or made to order client who needed 6 charcoal bow ties for his wedding. His father had passed on to him a charcoal Zegna bow tie many moons ago and the groom was not going to settle for any other colour. The end result is this bow tie, which I think is a beautiful number, although I am biased towards all my bow ties.... This is a mogador silk, so it is lush and ties a thick knot and creates lovely dimples. I only have a few of these to sell, www.lnpties.com - $155.00

Did You See Us In The Bel??

We had a great write-up on the blog The Bel. http://the-bel.com/le-noeud-papillon-sydney-the-bel-essentials/2011/10/20

Introducing Lachlan - Our First Basket Weave

Lachlan is a combination of a light lilac, sea green and light blue. This bow is a limited edition and the first of our basket weaves. Available as of today on www.lenoeudpapillon.com - Price is $155.00 AUD.

Another Photo From That Splendid Wedding

The groom wears a lighter Super 180 Ambassador cloth by Dormeuil, the groomsmen wear Super 130 Holland And Sherry Navy in a honeycomb. All suits were by Le Noeud Papillon Sydney. 

William B and Premium Black Back In Stock

We have received a fresh batch of stock of William B and Premium Black Mogador bow ties. We also have a fresh batch of Black Diamonds and Sinatra bow ties. Phew!!!

Bow Ties And Bogans

A customer of mine who lives in rural Australia wrote in to Mens Flair to complain about the Australian male psyche and the way it reacts to those that dress well. It is a great vignette, read it here: http://www.mensflair.com/news/bowties-bogans.php.

Here is the article reproduced below:

Bow Ties & BOgans

The other evening my girlfriend and I were walking down the main street of our town to an art opening at my favourite gallery; I was a bit excited about this but more excited because I was wearing my new bow tie from Le Noeud Papillion.

While we were stopped at traffic lights I noticed a car waiting there also. What drove my attention to the car was that the girl inside looked right at me, laughed, then said something to her boyfriend so he could get in on the joke. With the window down it was pretty easy to see the two of them grinning, glaring and laughing directly at me until the lights changed.

I’m new to this sort of style (it’s only the 3rd time I’d worn a bow tie) and I have to admit it got to me a little.

Had I been either more brave or petty I might of pointed out that his singlet is only meant to be an undergarment, his hat was crooked and, with a bachelor in fine arts, I can say his tattoo looked standard issue and thoughtless.

Most others in this small rural town when seeing me in a bow tie that night just looked at me like a little oddly, and I guess I was the odd one out so fair enough.

This little experience has taught me at least two things.

Firstly, wearing a bow tie in this world requires a confidence of a belly dancer (they look pretty confident to me). If you show any sign of individuality in your appearance you’ll be judged and ridiculed. You can pull it off only if you tell the world: “I’m confident in myself. No matter how ridicules you think I look I disagree and I’m not fussed with your opinion”. I was a little funny about it at first, but I look forward to wearing a bow tie at our local jazz and wine festival. I like bow ties, I look good in the bow and my girlfriend thinks so too. All the good reasons to continue wearing them.

Secondly, you should never point and laugh at people from your car when stopped at traffic lights.

Trent Beven is a fine arts graduate in rural Australia with weakness for fine hats, blazers and american folk songs.

Mahon Shows Us Freehand Pattern Making

Mahon Tailors As Featured In A Suitable Wardrobe

http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2007/04/thomas-mahon-basted-fitting.html and the Mahon website: http://www.englishcut.com/

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Monica Belluci, Directed By Guiseppe Tornatore For Dolce And Gabbana

Dolce And Gabbana Dinner Jackets 2009

Sometimes you overlook something which you saw but didn't investigate properly. Two years ago I picked up one or two images of a quilted lapel gun metal grey velvet smoking jacket with silk trim that I thought was pretty unique and special. I went looking for it in the Dolce and Gabbana Fauborg St Honore store in Paris but the collection had sold through. Last night whilst trawling the internet late at night I stumbled upon this online magazine Swide which seems to be written to expressly promote Dolce and Gabbana and affiliates. But the gem was the smoking jackets which I found. I will post some images here. It looks like a nice site, brimming with content, so take a look at it if you have some time.