First I'll share the article from
Style Girlfriend as a backdrop:
Style Foul: Office Supplies as Menswear:
Last week, we had a good chat here on Style Girlfriend about collar stays. Some folks were for the metal magnet kind, some were against, but I think we all agreed that a crisp collar is a good thing.
Maybe that’s why, when I met a friend of a friend recently, my eyes kept drifting to his blue dress shirt’s neckline as we chatted. The shirt itself was pressed and clean, if a little worn-looking, but at his collar point I could see the outline of…well, what was it anyway?
Finally, my curiosity – and my cover as an inquisitive fashion blogger (“Just searching for the straight facts, Jack”) (…okay, no I don’t really talk like that but I wish I could), I asked.
“Sorry, what’s that in your collar?”
“Oh,” he looked down towards his shirt, then back at me and blushed a little. “It’s a paper clip. The collar was getting a little rumpled so…”
A paper clip. A PAPER CLIP.
What I was looking at was the now-permanent outline in his collar point of a 2-cent office supply jammed into the fabric of his dress shirt.
“But…but…” I grasped at the words while trying to recompose my face like a Rubik’s cube, so that all the friendly, smiling parts were facing towards him. I wanted to seem – to be – helpful, while avoiding coming off like a complete jerk.
“You know they make collar stays, right? Like, you can buy them?”
“Yeah, I just don’t really care about this shirt, so…I mean, I should probably just throw it away, huh?”
So much about this sentence created a traffic jam in my brain. He cared enough to want the collars pointy. But not enough to reach beyond arm’s length on his desk for wardrobe support? I suppose I should be glad he didn’t staple the collar to stay in place? Or use scotch tape in place of a tie?
Because, and I’ve said it before, it’s the little things, guys! Details matter. Details like collar stays instead of office supplies. Girls notice these things. Everyone notices these things.
The good news? He promised me he’d throw away the shirt that night.
(image)
And now I share with you my award winning, hand-made, one-of-a-kind duct tape tie:
I made this for a April Fool's Tacky Tie contest we had in the office a few years ago. By sheer force of absurdity, I won. Also note the electrical tape stripes. My boss seemed most amused by this part because I put them there just in case someone else wore a duct tape tie. Even a couple years later he seems amused by the fact that I would think there would be anyone else donning such neckwear. In my defense, I do work in a geeky environment, whether my coworkers will admit it or not.
I was so inspired by my victory that I planned to make a roadkill tie made of some animal pelt with zig-zags of ribbon to simulate tire treads as a sequel, but alas, the contest never saw a second year.
