The Art of a Tie: Passagio Cravatte

I've always wanted the best.  Problem is, there's so damned little of it.  Gianni Cerrutti and I started a conversation back in early August.

My name is Gianni, Italian, and I am the founder of Passaggio Cravatte. This  I will write because I have a very important dream. And you can make it come true.

His English isn't the best and my Italian doesn't exist but like buying cheese in Paris -- some pointing to this or that, a key word  like Epoisses, and you're good to go.  I was offered a tie and asked to pick a few from a library of vintage silk, cotton and cashmere.  From a handful of my choices, Gianni would pick one but it would be a surprise until it showed on my door step.

We are unique in Europe and not only to have only true vintage fabrics. In fact, our fabrics have all aged between 40 and 60 years of life on his shoulders. They are still hand-printed and they are all limited edition. This is because after 2 ties the fabric ends.Beyond that evoke British regimental archives of 1930.

I can't imagine a better life than being a custom tie maker in Italy.  Hands down, it soars above George Costanza's choice of architect. Roaming around Lake Commo for bits and pieces here and there. A softly lit workroom with sunlight peering in through 200 year old glass windows over looking a cobble stone street. The quiet cutting of silk and the silence of seven folds and noiseless sewing...As the little boy admiring a library book of Gaugain's Tahiti says in "Goodbye Columbus, "Ain't that the fucking life."

We are the only ones making the old 7 folds in a single piece of silk. This is when all ties to the world are the union of 3 pieces of fabric. This is the Rolls of all ties to the world. Our 7 folds old is not to be confused with the modern one. In fact, ours is the original model that was born in the early 1900s. We do it like then. All without any internal and hemmed by hand. In addition we are always the only ones making the ties - always very exclusive - in just 2 pieces of fabric.

I wish I sold  good feelings but I sell insurance.  No sadness without joy - No joy without sadness.  Selling insurance is lot like selling tires  --  It's more a solution to a problem and people want to pay as little as they have to.  It's hard to show off your insurance company -- Unless you have Chubb -- But I digress...

Our tailors are in Naples and only work for us still in their homes. As more than a century ago. Us we finish, and we stretch the check because they must not have defects. The ironing is very important for us, in fact I do it directly. Even the label are strict with ourselves. Then, having many foreign customers we are also able to provide tailor-made vintage ties without disturbing the customer from their office or from home.

Gianna's tie arrives and it's this powerful combination of green, blue, and an orange red that matches a freshly painted guest bedroom.  The tie is a self tipped feather. So much so, that when I make the first loop, I almost expect it to fly away.  Instead of fat heavy silk stuffed with a lining -- this is a silk air mail envelope. Everywhere are hands: Rolled edges, tipping, the keeper...all of it a kind of imperfect perfection.  

Gianni sends another tie along as a surprise.  A simple four fold rep but in cashmere that has softened with time.  I've had a few cashmere ties but nothing this...It's so utterly soft that I decide I must line a closet in cedar just to protect it from the moths.

I'm probably going overboard but I almost always do when I find something that I know is in rare supply. These ties are little pieces of art and as art goes -- They're fairly reasonable at 80 to 120 Euros. Ever since my first non clip-on tie that was issued in the Army, I must have purchased well over 500.  I mean that.  And it's embarrassing to admit, but it has been 36 years.  Frankly, unless you're really clothes mad, you might be a little let down by Gianni's ties.

They are of an aesthetic that you must really appreciate.  You could buy a bunch of J. Crew ties for just one of Gianni's seven folds but everyday I listen to opera I don't understand,  I look at paintings I know nothing about, I drink wine and have no idea what it is -- But I'm  moved by it all and that makes me want to know more. When you get there...you'll know it.

Hello Dear,

Now I can tip the balance.

I think your tie is ready Mondays.

To what address shall I send?

Let me know and thank you for everything,

I can not wait to send it.

Gianni

Gianni Cerutti
Passagio Cravatte 

One Night Stands & Zippos

This picture of Central Park should put you in a reflective mood. If you're reading this, bouncing your knee and biting your finger nails -- consider coming back later this evening. Maybe with an adult beverage. Put on some music and slow down. Just a little. I have something to tell you.

I was talking to Stew, a blogger (Blood & Grits) I have a great deal of respect for. Not only as a writer I admire and envy, but as a man who can simplify complicated things. Be they, cooking pig trotters or giving insight into life or finding really cheap hooch. In short, I think Stew is a poet. A couple days ago Stew asked,

"Why the fuck is every blogger compelled to take photos of his submariner and post them right along with the pictures of "the serene bedroom" with bedside tables littered with stained espresso cups or teacups with PG Tips bags hanging like limp dicks from their lips?"

I told you he was a poet. I tell Stew about a blogger who showed me a Vietnam era Zippo he bought off eBay. I noticed the unit insignia on the lighter was from a division that had been disbanded in the 1950's. Stew said,

"Shit happens if you have no knowledge of the artifact you pursue. Knowing the artifact and simply acquiring it are mutually fucking exclusive. But today, to have is to know. A simple blog post stakes authenticity or at least makes a claim of being "in the know." Most of the time, as you say here, it shows one actually knows little of what one claims. Fucking Internet."

That's it. You can stop reading now because all I'm going to do is repeat what Stew said, but I'll use a lot more words and be far more confusing. It's so good I stole it. I would add that curiosity is key to a well lived life. Buying a picture for the sake of hanging it on a wall is like having a one night stand with a stranger. Sure, it's pleasurable, but not for very long.

I was interested in European advertising posters about 12 years ago. I was living in Chicago and there was a dealer across the street from the Art Institute. I looked at posters but bought four books on poster history. The dealer rang the books up and said, "It's nice to see someone who's really interested and willing to research before buying." I though he was busting my ass for not buying a poster, but he added, "Most folks just want something to hang over the sofa. They could care less about where it came from, who designed it, the significance of it..."

A funny thing happens when you accumulate a lotta shit you don't know anything about or have any connection to. It quickly moves from "The Get" to "The Get Rid Of." For bloggers it becomes a prop for electronic Show & Tell. Sadly, while authenticity is touted it's usually sacrificed. If you don't know what it means or stands for -- how the hell can you appreciate it?

I would add that the experience of the purchase -- that is, "I stayed up 'til two in the morning bidding on eBay for this" is not the experience I'm talking about. However, learning what it is, researching the background and history, wondering who owned it before you, or even better, knowing who owned it...These simple things make the connection.

I'm trying hard not to get too curmudgeonly about this, but I guess the question is this. Are you curious? In the end, curiosity didn't kill the cat but kept me alive while being in a world I didn't think much of. No matter how bad things got, I always wondered, "What's gonna happen next?"

Major Andre: Soldier, Lover, Spy

John Andre or possibly his brother
Andre sketched this self portrait the morning of his execution


The execution in Tappan, NY

12 years ago today I had an agent at William Morris.

When people talk about letting go of the prior year - - It will come as no to surprise to anyone that I have a problem letting go of 1986 much less last year. I was flipping through some old diaries when I came across notes of a phone call with a production executive at United Artists in early December of 1997. I can see how excited I was by the writing on the page. Clear, easy to read and very detailed. Unlike any notes I had taken before or since.

There was interest in a screenplay I had written about Major John Andre. A man who came very close to winning the American Revolution for the British. And had it not been for some very bizarre twists of fate and two bumbling yokels right out of a Laurel & Hardy comedy - - he would have pulled it off. And we would be a very different country today. Probably one with a national health care system.

John Andre (1750-1780) was always the British spy in American history who was snotty, rude and probably a homosexual sleeping with his boss, General Henry Clinton. While preparing a National Park Service presentation on the American Revolution from the British point of view...I found someone else.

A man of social graces to be sure but also a man who was well liked by almost everybody who met him. No small task when he was making a meteoric rise up the British Army's chain of command. By the age of 30, he was a major and head of Intelligence for Clinton in New York. The position carried the rank of colonel but he was held back due to lack of funds to pay for the commission.

To make a long story and a 155 page screenplay short - - That's poor Major Andre you see up there hanging from the gibbet. He made the unfortunate error of traveling behind American lines dressed as a civilian and hiding plans to West Point in his sock. These two mistakes were at the insistence of Benedict Arnold who was selling his services to the British for roughly $3,000,000 in today's currency and a general's commission.

I even have some sympathy for Arnold. A pushy loyalist wife, Peggy Shippen and a congress who refused to reimburse him for out of pocket expenses. That alone would piss me off to no end not to mention he was, hands down, Washington's best general on the field.

I started the story in 1988. I followed Andre and Arnold everywhere. I have boxes of tapes, photographs, music of the period, books on the culture and graces...It was my passion for years. Sadly my development executive was fired. I was told I'd hear from Lindsay Doran who was running UA. Sadly, she was fired. Soon afterwards, very sadly, William Morris fired me. They never did like it was 155 pages.

I had passion for the writing, the period, the music, the art. Passion for the people who were long gone but were in my heart everyday. And I remember that passion when I see those notes that were written 12 years ago. I reckon five...maybe six people read, "Major Andre: Soldier Lover Spy" Last month 45,000 of you read The Trad. I just wanted to say thank you for keeping the passion going.