And why would one still want to wear a tie in 2023, you might ask? “When I was younger, everybody wore a tie,” says the MD of Davide’s grenadine weaver. “My father and grandfather wore a tie. If you look at videos from the 1960s and even the 1970s, even all the football stadiums were full of men wearing ties on the weekend. Now, the sons of my father’s generation – I am 53 – no longer wear ties. It is because wearing ties used to be compulsory. Now it is a choice. It is more fashion. But when you wear a tie and dress up in a nice way, you don’t just look different, you feel different.”
M.J. Bale’s double-sided print pocket squares in matte silk, linen and linen-cotton, woven by Davide’s 92-year-old firm in Lake Como, are also elegant points of difference. We’re biased, of course, but they are menswear works of art; it’s almost a shame they are created to be stuffed inside a pocket.