Bow Tied…by The Cordial Churchman

This Paul Stuart yellow club tie was purchased specifically to replace…

…this one.

But I never discarded this old tattered Polo tie that I bought in the early 1980’s. As a matter of fact, I still wore this one even when the new Paul Stuart one was sitting atop it, amongst the litter of neckwear all curled up in my tie drawer.

I’ll steal a phrase from LPC and call this a “Sturdy Tie.” I literally wore it with everything and usually wore it well…because it matched almost every conceivable contrivance of colour—pattern—texture. But it’s kinda like a few other inanimate things that I refuse to discard. I begin to attach memories, feelings and events to the object and then it’s never gonna make the proverbial Goodwill Pile.

Three things come to mind specifically that land in this ADG realm of silly eccentricities. My first pair of LL Bean Camp Mocs…too fragile to wear; my Polo cotton Boatneck sweater…no logos…no nothing but the sturdiest all purpose sweater I own—and still in good service. And of finally this tie…long out of service but always nearby.

I knew that Ellie over at The Cordial Churchman created great bow ties and even offered to transform old neckties into a bow tie creation. She made Toad a great scarf and Giuseppe over at an Affordable Wardrobe has posited on her handcrafted gems.

So I sent my memory laden strip of silk to Ellie and alternated a syncopated back story of the tie’s importance to me with an apology for sending her something so tattered that there might not be enough unspoiled surface left to make a bow tie.

But Ellie manifested the same craftsmanship and love that I’m certain she and her husband, THE churchman, manifest in raising their lovely boys and building their life of service. It’s the small gestures and clever touches that sometimes end up being huge differentiators. And I love how she wraps the transformed creation in a remnant sliver of the old, remaindered canvas from which she transforms.

What’s more is that she was able to work her magic and find enough unworn surface to transform this object of maudlin over-sentimentality into a vehicle assured to now host another few decades of memories.

My hastily tied first wearing tells me a thing or two. Neither I nor the bowtie are yet comfortable with this new circumstance. After manifesting twenty seven years as a necktie—even with the skilled hands of Ellie transforming it, we aren’t yet confident in manifesting ourselves as a bow tie and bow tie wearer. 

And I wasn’t prone to sling it around by the short hairs…showing it who daddy was, is and will continue to be…treating it like I own it…like you must do with a pocket handkerchief or Belgian shoes…in an effort for it to unfurl in bow tied perfection on my maiden securitization of bow assemblage.

It doesn’t yet know that it’s a bowtie and I’m willing to be patient as it reorders it’s patination and broken-in cured-ness. I liken it to sitting down with one of my paternal grandmother’s seventy year old, beautifully cured cast iron frying pans and telling it that “from this moment forward, you are no longer a frying pan but a saucier.”  No doubt, the tenured frying pan could make the transition, but patience during the renovation would be required by all involved.

So I’ll tie my new creation with patience for a while. Allowing the manifestation of Ellie’s transformative gift to develop its stride and jaunty swagger in due form and time.

Thank you Ellie, for this…my repurposed fryer…my saucier.

Onward. Bow Tied. ADG, II