How the Silk Bow Tie Business Began

So how did the silk bow tie business begin when I was trained as a fine painter?

I was living in Paris in 1978, in a garret by the Jardin des Plantes with my wife Emma and my year old first born Jesse, now the famed patron of Notting Hill’s hugely popular Mall Tavern.

Our walls were covered in nudes, and I also painted portraits.  In the kids sand pit in Les Arenes I met another painter of nudes.  He painted from Playboy magazine in only three colours.  Needless to say, they did not sell. He lived by painting silk scarves.  I wanted to paint one for Emma’s birthday, and a friend supplied the silk which measure a yard by a metre.

Being poor, I used every inch of that silk, using the left over bit to make a bow tie for myself, using a green silk bow tie as a template.  Emma had made me one in Brazil where our Jesse was born.  Luckily silk bow ties are not made on the cross, as are long ties.  I would not have had any success had that been the case. It was also due to Emma’s very fine needle work.

When she saw the beautiful silk tie I made myself, my model Carolyn asked me to make a couple for her boyfriend.  So I made them, and a few more as Christmas presents for friends.  One of these lucky friends happened to be wearing his prize a few months later when he wandered into Joseph’s first shop in London.

The designer spotted this silk confection and contacted me for more.  This coincided with our return to England, whereupon I found I had an order for a Knightsbridge boutique.  Some magazine picked up the story of my silk bow ties and soon I was tracked down by other buyers from Blades of Savile Row, and from Harrods.

Unfortunately the Harrods buyer baulker when he examined them closely and found they were fitted with used bra clips.  I was told to go and source the true fittings.  However none of the established tie makers would tell me where I could find these clips.

Then inspiration struck.  Emma phoned the tie maker and said she was making dungarees for Jesse’s teddy bear – could they please tell her where she could buy the little metal clips that she noticed on her husbands black silk bow tie?  Certainly Madam……

So we got to Harrods and the world.

Tags: beginnings, bow, business, colour, hand, mall, off, one, painted, silk, tavern, tie, unique