Hand-Selecting And Hand-Cutting Silks Makes A Difference - Black Tie Peacock Bow Ties

By using see-through patterns and hand-selecting silks we are able to create unique one off and subtle silk bow ties that have an air of spunk whilst retaining the elegance of traditional black tie. They are not for everyone, nor do we wish to sell to every one. They are for the man who already has a black satin silk bow tie and requires something for a celebration, maybe his 50th, maybe he just got a promotion, maybe it's time for him to step out at a gala dinner. Whatever the reason, we don't care, just find a reason. Because once you don this bow tie, there is no going back, you are the man who stepped out of the confines of de rigeur black tie, the renegade, the Young Turk, the baller. Enjoy it and don't let the haters get to you, as Taylor Swift once aptly said - haters gonna hate hate hate hate, I just wanna shake shake shake, shake it off, shake it off. www.lenoeudpapillon.com

Silk Eye Shades - Why Ours Are Better .... In My Opinion ... :)

Last week I logged onto Mr. Porter to buy some silk eye shades. I just wanted to see what the competition was offering. You see I know where our silk comes from and I know it's from the most reputable silk mills in the world. And I know the linings we used can't be found anywhere else. I know our customers love them, I know they make for a great gift. I know that when I say with a Parisian designer from a notable house last year and I showed him a pair he said "wow, why didn't I think of that" and now they are also making silk eye shades. So, I know there is nothing wrong with the product or the quality. Only, perhaps, the size of them. So, from tomorrow onwards we will be working on a female size of eyeshades in the hope that husbands, who already own a pair of our eye shades, may consider a pair for their BAE (which I understand means Before Anyone Else) .... 

If you don't own our silk eye shades but do want to know what its like to have the best silks in the world wrapped around your head to block out the light and let you relax, then consider logging on to see our latest ones here.

Being Generous Never Dates - The Elegant Proportions Of Michael Douglas In The War Of The Roses

It is Easter for most Christians today. My Easter, the Orthodox Easter, comes in a week's time. So I am using this Sunday to write the blog and design silks and .... soaking in some television and revisiting old movies.

This week it has been all about The War Of The Roses. I watched it mid week in the evening and I was struck by how elegant the clothes were on Michael Douglas' character, Oliver Rose.

The costume designer, Gloria Gresham does an exceptional job of creating the arc of the character; from the young Oliver Rose in a mac on a rainy day in Nantucket looking for a bargain at an estate sale, to the young family man, the lawyer on the make trying to ingratiate himself with the senior partners and finally to the man who reaches the zenith of his manhood until his wife tells him she wants out just as the kids are packing off to go to college.

It is such a well told story narrated by the idiosyncratic voice of Danny De Vito as he tells a prospective new client of the slow and eventual degradation of the marriage until Oliver finds himself pissing in his wife's fish in what is some of the best but dark comedy I have ever seen and possibly the most enjoyable divorce film I have ever watched.

And the clothes are wonderful. Michael Douglas does a three piece so well in this film with a longer collar and lower notched lapel often in a more generous cut both in terms of the size of the lapels and in the shoulders. He is, when at work, impeccably dressed in a higher stand windsor collar and a small dimpled four in hand silk neck tie in a jacquard woven silk.

But it is the waist coat, something so few men do in Australia and which so few men do well these days anywhere, which sets off the suits and gives him a presence that befits his position as a senior partner in a law firm.

The use of costume in this film only heightens the fall from grace as the breakdown of his marriage becomes so vitriolic that he resorts to wearing his white tie tuxedo with a silk top hat and bow tie on top of a t shirt to venture into his wife's dinner party, throwing his snotty tissue in the soup bowl before announcing that he will then go into the kitchen to piss on their fish.

If you haven't watched the The War Of The Roses, you should. It's a killer comedy (black comedy?) and in between the entertainingly toxic relationship that builds you will enjoy all the fashion which, in my opinion, has not dated one iota.

The Great Pleasures Of This Job - Meeting Your Eccentric Customers

In eleven years we have generated relationships with customers all around the world and I have met up with them in cities such as Milan, New York and Paris. It is a great pleasure to meet them - they are always different and seldom do they not surprise me. The last customer I caught up with was Phillip Carmody in Melbourne. He is a school teacher specialising in music and when I saw him standing there in a bowler hat I thought 'no, that can't be him'. We'd spoken on the phone but I'd never managed to get an image of him. He has a radio announcers style of voice, one which did not befit the eccentric tartan suited bow tie wearing beard loving bowler hatting man in front of me. And what a pleasure it was to sit down and just talk. Such a pleasure and I am so glad he let me take this photo of him. Mission documented. Now to the next eccentric! 

Did You See Peter Overton Wearinig Our Garza Fina Tie In Burgundy?

I wrote to Peter Overton last week a text message just after his birthday and in it I said that he was playing the full keyboard of life: wife, work, children and what not. He is a busy man but occasionally I catch him when he's off to the shops as he lives not far from where I cut my silks. He has been a wonderful model for our more conservative garza grossa and garza fina ties that we offer. This one in burgundy marries so beautifully with his suit and shirt. It's a lovely balance of colour. As I wrote on our Instagram page, burgundy and navy are like old friends who when they catch up don't even need to talk to one another. Thank you Peter and happy birthday. 

Review: Tom Ford Underpants - How Do They Stack Up Against Other Brands?

Let me preface this post by saying that the author of this post was not given anything to write this post nor do I get freebies etc etc. I write these posts because I genuinely like to know what's going on out there and to share my thoughts with our bow tie customers.

Tom Ford doesn't seem to ever put a foot wrong and his underwear line is extremely enjoyable and frankly, not a bad price point. Quality wise they sit somewhere between a Bresciani and a Zimmerli underpant, not quite there on the first iteration but creatively speaking and with regards to the details, they are ahead of both by leaps and bounds. Firstly, the idea of making a silk underpant with a velvet elasticated band is very clever. The underpants have a striking resemblance to a boxer's shorts (not boxer shorts although perhaps there is some correlation), which means you feel as though you are being tough and risque in the same instance. You probably wouldn't want to get caught in a shop's change room with these bad boys on but I am sure there are swingers clubs where they will be a sheer (literally) delight.

As for the regular underpants, he's done a good job on replicating the grosgrain rib you might find on a top shelf pair of Zimmerli of Switzerland underpants (to my mind Zimmerli are the best in the world) but as is usual for Tom Ford, they have that lovely detail of using the brand's signature diamond point labelling system placed front and centre on the grosgrain. You can't do things like this without a significant capital outlay so my guess is Tom Ford really wants to penetrate (no pun intended) men's underwear in a big way.

And what about the prints? The grooviest underwear company for the price point, in my opinion, is Bonds of Australia. They have such a funky way of doing low end underpants that you feel compelled to buy them even if the fabric aren't 'luxurious'. A pima cotton, an Egyptian cotton, a Sea Island cotton - these are things to be aspired by the man on the make - but when you get to that level the chances are they only make them in the classics of black, navy and white. So it is refreshing when an underpants brand starts to go a bit funky as Tom Ford has done although the fabrics are not quite at that level.  Some of the designs are downright sexy and my hope is that he continues in that vein because it's always nice to know that when you strip off you can say 'see, I told you there was a party in my pants'.

So would you stock underpants drawer full of Tom Ford? In my opinion, no. There is something about having one man's name across my underpants that has always alarmed me since Calvin Klein. I believe it was a line used in Back To The Future where Michael J Fox's mom says to him "Well, isn't that your name, Calvin Klein? It's written all over your underwear". And since then, if I can avoid it, I don't want some other dudes name all over the front of my crotch. I'm okay with a last name or a generic name like POLO, but for me this is prized real estate. I would have preferred if he had done something discreet on the back, above the arse say, where it just said "TF" - let's face it, those in the know would know.

Packaging wise, it's nice to see something a little different. The box is self closing magnetic and wraps around the box to reveal a neat window in plastic. Nice solid boxes, ones you will want to keep but will throw away on account of the plastic window.

So, I believe you should get a pair, one pair to start with. I managed to find them on Mr. Porter, I believe they are exclusive there. And if you had to start with one pair, choose the loud ones as they are a lovely point of difference.