New Silks Just Loaded - Come And See Them

Visit us now on www.lenoeudpapillon.com

Recent Feedback - One I Feel The Need To Share

It can be a thankless job. There are times when on a Monday morning when I am packing and sending and adding in little small gifts as a token of my appreciation for our customers that I think to myself 'am I making a difference'. The stoics said that if a man were to live well he had to remain relevant to the society and times in which he lived. Viktor Frankl also believed this, that man's search for meaning and purpose was above all the most important aspect of one's life, beyond the pursuit of happiness, beyond the pursuit of wealth etc.

Anyway, without further ado, and without wanting to get ahead of my skis, I was very chuffed to get the testimonial below sent through from a new customer of ours.

*****************************

Hello Le Noeud Papillon,

I wanted to share with you a story from today. A seven year old girl with mucopolysaccharidosis, who needs to come into hospital weekly for treatments, absolutely loves the colour purple. Last week when she came in she was very upset about some challenges she’d had sleeping. I promised her next week I’d wear a purple tie.

Today I wore your perfect bow tie, purple with white polka dots (and reverso of purple satin) and she was thrilled. I promised her at the start of her treatment (which takes 6 hours) if she weren’t too tired at the end I’d show her how it’s tied. After waiting patiently, she was totally enthralled with how it works.

Thank you for making wonderful bow ties!

C. Kundle,

Canberra, Australia. 

*****************************

Mercury In Retrograde And The Art Of Non-Violent Communication

It's been a tough July. A very tough one indeed. And when it was going very pear shaped I googled which dates Mercury was in retrograde in 2019 and lo and behold it pretty much started the moment that things started unravelling in my world.

The first time I heard about Mercury being in retrograde was when my psychotherapist, who has guided me through all sorts of mishaps and dysfunctional relationships, told me to be kind to myself during a particular period because of this astrological phenomenon. She said 'you cannot embark on a new project during this period. It is a time of revision, revisiting, checking over, reviewing and so on. Anything that has a re on it you can engage in. Anything new, don't do it, it will not work out.' At first I thought I needed to change therapists, but then I decided to follow her advice and it worked.

I went back over work. I checked on projects that were existing and revised and revisited them. I revisited dialogue between parties. I checked my own thinking too. And I came out the other side on top.

This time around it hit me sideways. I really thought the Gods were playing with me. I found myself bumping into people I hadn't seen in a while and revisiting old feelings and thoughts. I would leave my phone in my car and have to walk down four flights of stairs to go get it. My internet connection went down. My car needed a new battery.

Tuesday was, I hope, the worst of it. I had a huge family blowout and as usual I found it tough to see what part I was playing and instead wished to pass the buck on those that were reacting to me. The pressure gasket blew on Tuesday and so by Tuesday evening I did myself a favour and I revisited Marshall Rosenberg's art of non-violent communication. If any of you are out there and are experiencing the same phenomenon, of old wounds being prodded, of being challenged and being told you or your behaviour is unacceptable, then I would encourage you to watch the You Tube video below.

Non-violent communication is very hard to achieve. It requires you to step back and re-examine yourself, your moral judgements and the preconceptions we carry with us formed by what we learn from society, from friends, from family. And it requires you to carefully listen to others, a skill God did not bless me with. Instead I got ego and self-righteousness.

My life lessons these past two years have been bitter sweet. There is a level of self-entitlement in me which I do battle with daily. And I am indulgent in so many ways. My hope, by the time mercury in retrograde ends, is to have re-examined myself so that I can take enough time to listen to other people's needs and maybe, just maybe, August will bring some respite.

For The Love Of Money - Crocodile Wallets Last So Much Longer

NB: I am not paid to post nor do I receive a discount for posting this review. 

Money is the root of all evil - until you don't have any - then you don't see it in quite the same light. I love money. As someone once said to me 'money's not everything - but it ranks up there with oxygen'. I think the problem is not money, but having too much money.

There is an Israeli diamond trader that recently said to a friend of mine 'I feel naked without twoooo thouuusssand dollars in my pocket'. The friend keeps it in a roll, sometimes in a money clip. Always in 100 bills which are ordinarily so hard to come by. 

But money is changing. It used to be visceral. Show me the cash and then we'll negotiate. Now it's this strange milieu of web apps, desktops and NFC tapping that has taken some of the glamour away of having a fancy credit card or a lovely wallet in which to put it in.

This year, after nearly fourteen years, I finally had to get a new wallet. My last two were purchased from Heather Brown of Di Croco in Sydney's Double Bay. Since then she moved to Darwin and keeps a single store up there. Her skins, from memory, are tanned in Singapore and she uses only the best Australian saltwater crocodile skins. Plus, she's clever enough to design them for Australian notes, which is so much more alluring than the European wallets that often are much deeper. It's the smartest best quality wallet for Australian's that I have seen. Simple, elegant, lithe. And, it has crocodile both inside and outside. 

But then, I don't use cash that much anymore, and more frequently, I don't even use my credit cards. So in March, I found myself entertaining the other style of wallet. One which holds very few credit cards and keeps the basics that you still need (but probably soon will do away with) of driver's license and health care card. The one I found, from Al Bazaar of Milan, which was stocked in Melbourne's Double Monk, was on sale and was slightly large than I was used to but which has become my day to wallet. It's a sturdy crocodile in blue with an insert for cash in the centre and two extra sleeves in which I place things such as petrol receipts (which increasingly are being photographed and automatically filed in apps). 

Of both of them I am extremely happy. But like all things magical and wonderful in the world of artisans and craftsmanship, I fear for the future of products such as wallets, just as much as I fear for the future of the tie and bow tie. Because the world is so rapidly changing, the way we move money, the way we wear our clothes, the way technology so swiftly replaces things that were once ageless, it is incumbent on artisans and makers to get very creative very quickly to find relevance for their products and materials. 

Once upon a time a company could rest on it's laurels for a very long time. Get a pen right, get suitcase right, you had a forseeable income stream. I don't think anyone can do that anymore, not in any product category. I'm not sure governments are ready to chip us like dogs just yet, so a passport holder and a driver's license and identity cards I believe will remain in place - so the wallet will still have relevance, but you can feel it changing. Those days when you saw a city worker open his bulging wallet with every membership card he'd ever had an cash spilling out - they are dying out. As I observe in the morning now, most are tapping their cards on 3 dollar purchases and the more savvy ones are tapping their phones.

But for now, and for the years to come, I am still very much attached to a good wallet, passport or card holder. And for an Australian, I highly recommend Di Croco in Darwin. You are getting the best leather and you are supporting Australian craftsmanship.

Passagio Cravatte - Bepsoke Ties Of Excellent Quality And Hand-Made To Your Specifications

A truly bespoke service, Passagio Cravatte is one of those businesses that thrives from the advent of social media. You can see their work being done each day on their handle @passagiocravatte and then over the weeks that follow, how their customers wear their ties.

The owner, Gianni, from time to time follows us on Instagram and it piqued my curiosity a couple of months ago when I trawled his wall and was 'deep liking' some of his content. 'Deep liking' a cultural phenomenon in the years that followed Instagram, is trawling through very old content, sometimes going right back to the start. It's apparently a favourite pass time of stalkers and let's face it, most of us voyeurs following someone's account are to some extent stalkers.

So there I was looking back on his work when I found a burgundy and cream silk twill that I became instantaneously enamoured with. I reached out to Gianni Cerutti, owner of this small artisan label and he wrote back something which began with "Hello Dear" . It was off putting, but that's what you get with Italians from time to time. Something of a 'lost in translation' thing. Still, I was bent on having something made so I soldiered on.

I must add here, and this says something more about me than it does about them, that a few years back Gianni had upset some of his English customers and they trolled his wall so badly that it became something of a fappening. So, as I proceeded with my orders and winced at the emails, I already had some prejudice in the back of my mind.

To be fair, they never offered a set time to finish the work but I gave them a rough idea of when the work had to be finished by. As that date approached I became more and more agitated, mostly because they were unresponsive to email requests but the entire time they were not answering emails, you could see them working on Instagram each day on somebody else's tie. Alas, this is the conundrum of small artisan brands - everybody thinks - just like those that use lawyers - that they must certainly be their best client and entitled to round the clock service. It is my experience that bespoke often attracts all the special snowflakes. This was affirmed recently when I sat down with my shirt maker for lunch and he talked about some of the city workers that bust his balls over half a centimetre.

In my own brand, I often try to turn out custom work in 72 hours. It's one of the benefits of having a cutting table in my Studio and a dedicated seamstress who can receive and process orders sometimes in as little as three hours if needs be.

Donc, we arrive at the point where the customer is now frustrated and writing emails like some sweating madman and using social media to make a point. It wasn't right on my behalf and I offer Gianni an unreserved apology, because, when the product arrived this week, I was supremely happy.

We don't do silk twill. Not for bow ties anyway. Mostly because they don't provide enough body to tie a great knot. So for silk twill we only do pochettes and scarves, leaving that realm of printed silk ties to those that do them as their main source of income. Gianni has on file a great deal of them, all so very beautiful, classic, elegant, timeless in many respects. But what is more, he offers them hand-made and the very act of seeing your tie being cut, folded, pressed and slip stitched on his Instagram only adds to the charm of his small atelier which consists of himself and his wife.

I am honoured to now own two pieces of his work and if you are willing to put up with emails that start with 'Hello Dear' then you will find yourself pleasantly surprised by the end product and a small amount of wincing for a larger payoff.

Need a printed silk twill tie? Gentlemen, go directly to their Instagram and click on the link. I give them a thumbs up.