happy hallowed eve

Scarier than a vanful of sugar-high second-graders: a polyester tie so garish the camera is afraid to focus on it.

cotton candy

It looks like Goodwill wall art, but it's really a tie. A cotton tie.

postmodernism on a Tuesday evening

First photo: the original image.

Second photo: a photo of the image projected.

Which is reality?

(Neither.)

Tickle Me Elmo is ready for his close-up

A few of my tacky ties are silk. Only a few.

Happy Cartoon Day, one day late.

an apology to my small but loyal fanbase

No digital camera at home = delayed presentation of this Thursday's tie, a Tickle Me Elmo extravaganza. Sorry.

a money tie for 80s Day

Why not? It was the Decade of Greed.

paisley goes with nothing

Paisley just wasn't enough for Britannia's designers, who had to place the pattern on a fish-scale background (think brook trout). Those swaths of bright color aren't a trick of the light through the blinds. They're woven in.

Purchase the title tome, a male's guide to fashion, here.

aesthetics and semantics

The first effort must have tripped out the camera, but its blurriness is still appealing. It's probably how it appears to the unprepared eye.



The second effort gives the requisite detail. Pinstripe plaid on pistachio. (Yes, the milky green color is called "pistachio," at least if my in-house fashionistas are trustworthy.)

a "wacky" tie is not a "tacky" tie

Leave it to The Onion to get this close to understanding the tacky tie phenomenon.

"The first one I bought was a Three Stooges tie, and it went over so big, I thought, 'Hey, I just might be on to something here,'" said Poniewicz, who estimates that his wacky-tie collection now numbers around 60. "I think the next one I bought after that was one of that Saturday Night Live guy who used to say, 'The Robmeister! Makin' copies!' After that, the collection just sort of snowballed. My wife says that at the rate I'm going, pretty soon, we're going to have to set aside a whole room just for them."

Tacky ties are different. A "wacky" tie, worn in rebellion, is chosen because it is intentionally ugly. Tacky ties, though, were designed to be beautiful, but turned out accidentally ugly. It's a double irony, the difference between trash and kitsch.

Incidentally, my tacky tie collection numbers around 110. Just sayin'.

let there be tacky ties

Another from the original collection. Many, many years ago, I was standing at a church pew, shaking hands with neighboring churchgoers during meet-and-greet time, when a nearby parishioner and Mary Kay consultant looked at the tie, looked at me, looked at the tie again, and said "It fits."

I think it was a compliment.

polyester and polka dots

Best of all, it matches.