No Fabric? No Problem! Unconventional Ties To Wear Around Your Neck

feature image via  anthemwares.com

Sometimes you feel like a fabric tie, sometimes you don’t.

Back during the holidays, I was walking through the Union Square Holiday Market and I saw these fabulous wooden ties. I tucked that in the back of my brain, because wooden ties, duh. But also because I thought, huh, maybe fabric isn’t the only option anymore. Maybe this is A Thing. So without further ado, good gentlequeers, I bring you three options for ties that aren’t fabric at all. Queer the tie!

Ceramic Bowties

via waitfashion.com

via waitfashion.com

Cor Sine Labe Doli is a collection of ceramic bowties hand made by Italian artisans in Marostica. They start at $175 and work their way up from there. DapperQ featured them a while ago and they’ve been stuck in my brain ever since. My personal favorite is the Alter-Ego matte black variation. I also can’t take my mind off of the Primo bowtie in grey.

via openingceremony.us

via openingceremony.us

Wood Ties

via Wood Thumb

via Wood Thumb

These are the very self-same wood ties I saw at the Union Square Holiday Market that inspired this tie post. Made by Wood Thumb in San Francisco, they’re super clever and super comfy (I tried one on). They’re also made from reclaimed redwood from barns and bridges in northern California.  And I didn’t know this but look, they make wood bowties too! Their ties are $39.99 and their bowties are $35.99.

via Wood Thumb

via Wood Thumb

Lego Bowties

via WonderLee123

via WonderLee123

WonderLee123 makes lego bowties that appeal to my occasionally 12-year-old boy aesthetic without sacrificing chic. The bowtie pictured above is medium sized and priced $20.99, but there are larger ones for $25.99 if you’re looking for something a tad bit bigger.

Have you all noticed an increase in up-cycled or non-traditional tie making materials? What kinds of unconventional ties have you been putting around your necks lately?

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A.E. Osworth

A.E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit), is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (April 2021) and is available for pre-order now. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle (where they used to be the Geekery Editor), Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

A.E. has written 542 articles for us.

10 Comments

  1. One of my uncles got everyone a wooden tie or bowtie from Wood Thumb for Christmas because the company is close to where he works. He also gave us some kindling from their wood scrap, so lately I’ve been starting fires with roughly tie-shaped pieces of redwood. Now I just need to construct the perfect outfit to showcase my bowtie.

  2. One of my biggest disappointments (along with not being able to sing like Etta James or be good at pool) is that I look really silly in ties. Maybe one of these could change all that? Thanks, Autostraddle.

  3. You know, this post makes me want to start wearing bow ties again… but I’m really femme and I have no idea how this would work. Help?

    • I am too! But I love a bowtie. I always wear my long hair up in a messy bun and go with a patterned type of blouse. My favourite one right now has sausage dogs on it, and black skinny jeans. I generally wear ballet flats on the bottom or heels if I’m going out. I also have a few plain coloured pleated shirts which you could try. It’s my staple office outfit.

      I love the one wooden one! SOLD!

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