My collection of Liberty ties

Listening to a timesonline podcast on sensory branding this week got me think about what image best described me and I soon came up with Liberty ties as I have worn one to work almost every day over the last twenty years or more.

This picture is part of one of my three tie racks in my wardrobe and shows a few of the Tana Lawn (cotton) collection.

I've not counted my Tana Lawn ties but a rough calculation says it is over a hundred.

Another rack holds the silk Liberty ties that are kept back for special occasions; work stopped being a special occasion years ago. I only have about fifty of those!

It's a random assortment of colours and styles that happens to include some very traditional patterns, e.g. Hera (a.k.a. peacock feathers) and Ianthe, as well as some newer designs, such as the two stripey ones in the top left of the picture.

There are also quite a few bow-ties in there and there was a time when these were what I wore to work most of the time but fashions change and it is rare to see somebody in a bow-tie these days. I do still wear them sometimes, and not just at Glyndebourne either.

I cycle through the ties in a rough sequence so that I do not wear the same one twice in a short period. It sounds a bit sad, and it probably is, but it makes the task of deciding which tie to wear each day a lot easier as I only have to choose from the ties on the current or next bar of the current rack rather than considering all the bars on all three racks.

Only once have I gone to work wearing exactly the same tie as somebody else, that was a green and yellow Hera in 1991, though I often see somebody wearing a Liberty tie that I own.