YOUR AVERAGE common or garden British man owns more than a dozen ties. So why, you might wonder, have British Tie Week (which begins today) when all it will do is encourage him to purchase yet another? How many designs can one man have?
Ah well, you see, you've got it quite wrong, dear. Apparently of the millions of ties purchased each year, a staggering 80% are bought not by men but by women for men - and they're only worn once before being discarded to the dark shadows that are the back of his tie rack.
The thing is, ties, says Colin Wilson, chairman of the Guild of British Tie Makers, are a very personal thing and by buying a man one you might be revealing just how little you know him after all. ''Most ties are given as gifts,'' says Wilson, ''but men seldom want them.'' Men see ties as representing the window of their personalities, and would hate to be feeling the are giving out the wrong messages. By forcing him to wear the ''wrong'' one, we could be confusing his poor old psyche. So that's us told.
Nevertheless, the tie has still managed to reach its 111th birthday (on Saturday: hence the reason for BTW), the very day PM John Major has his 54th. Mitchelsons, the upmarket tie makers Wilson is head of, always send him a birthday tie. Needless to say its colouring is very conservative with a small and a capital C: navy with lighter blue patterns. But by revealing his true self via the window that is his tie the poor PM is, it seems, out of kilter with the taste of the rest of the British population because unlike the three-piece suit which can only change so much (three buttons instead of two, single breasted instead of double, one vent or none, etc), the tie has changed ''amazingly'' over the years, and indeed is still changing.
At the moment bright is right - just take a look at M&S's selection as a barometer. The most electric blues, emerald greens, daffy yellows, etc. (Mitchelsons make lots of theirs.) But Wilson says the most popular are the semi-plains with surface interest. Er - think that means a kind of compromise, a half-way house.
We take it this means there might be a tied vote.
n BRITISH Summer Time begins on Easter Sunday. Remember: spring forward, fall back. So, as it's spring, we stand to lose an hour. By winding our clocks back. Confused? Don't be. Just make sure your clock says 11pm when actually it's midnight on Saturday. Or that it says it's midnight on Saturday when it's 1am on Easter Sunday. Happy summertime!
n The new Channel 5 TV station starts broadcasting on Saturday, some four months late, employees having trekked round some 9.6 million homes to adjust video recorders at an estimated cost to the station of some #200m. Even then, only about 30% of the population will receive transmission, and the station faces legal action from customers who claim their television equipment was damaged during the re-tuning process. So was it all worth it? The rest of us might just be lucky enough to be able to tune in by the year 2001, so we'll get back to you . . .
n This week's Big Issue magazine includes a Street Style supplement featuring an interview with Sara Cox of the Girlie Show; Caryn Franklin of The Clothes Show giving insight into nineties style and the fashion industry; and Drew Plunkett, head of interior design at the Glasgow School of Art, giving advice on how to make a home statement without breaking the bank.
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