Re: Patti Smith on the Return of the Tie

[L French <lrfrench>]

Here's the text of the complete article... too bad Babelogue isn't active anymore as it would be nice to be able to archive all the patti articles that she's written since Babelogue stopped being updated.  
   
   
  PATTI SMITH on the RETURN of the TIE 
   
  HARPERS BAZAAR -  March, 2006 
   
  For the legendary singer, a tie has never represented a uniform; rather, it symbolizes freedom. And with ties appearing on the runway for Spring 2006, she argues that cool girls should always dress like the boys... 
   
  ________  
   
   
  When I was a child, no accessory seemed more romantic than a ribbon, and none more provocative than a tie. I was fascinated by my father's wide, jazzy postwar collection of ties and tried them on while he was sleeping. I coveted the country-western string tie, and when I was denied, as little girls were in the '50s, I made my own with black yarn. 
   
  The necktie has an interesting history. The first emperor of China awarded his imperial guard with silk neck cloths as a sign of distinction. During the Thirty Years War a form of the tie was introduced to the courts of Europe by Croatian horsemen. Louis V, the Sun King, was so smitten by their jaunty cravats that he adopted the style as his own. The word bandanna has its roots in the Sanskrit word badhnati. meaning "he ties." And anyone with a cowboy heart knows what a bandanna is. 
   
  In grade school I had my own private bandanna. But I soon switched over to the middy blouse. The blue sailor scarf crossed gender dressing and added swagger to my youthful step. I felt very connected with the sailor and the sea. It was my childhood statement of what I wished to be. Free to roam the world.
   
  As an adolescent l noticed the Catholic schoolboys dressed in white shirts and slim black ties. They seemed independent, poetic, and very cool. In the confines of my bathroom mirror I took on the look, though forbidden to me, a young public-school female. When I was old enough to take control of what I wore, I combed the Salvation Army thrift stores for my own ties. It was exciting to unearth unique specimens decorated with saxophones, Eiffel Towers, Jean Genet-style roses, or mysterious monograms. I added floppy bows of black silk as worn by Baudelaire, the great poet dandy, and wide-ribbon plantation ties as worn by Mississippi gamblers in the time of Mark Twain. But my favorite was always the slim black tie so despised by the boys lining the fences of the private school. 
   
  I was true to the shirt and tie through the '60s and '70s. My models were the likes of Alan Price and Eric Burden of the Animals, who rose from the British lower class to the arena of rock 'n' roll in white shirrs, black ties, and bad skin. I clocked Frank Sinatra's loose, sultry look. The radiant Jeanne Moreau In Jules et Jim. When I lived at the Chelsea Hotel, I often strolled with William Burroughs. William in a cashmere overcoat, striped shirt, and hand-painted tie and me in a motorcycle jacket and black ribbon. A gentleman bum and a disheveled wild boy. 
   
  For my 23rd birthday Robert Mapplethorpe made me a tie rack adorned with an image of the Virgin Mary. When I recorded my first album, Horses, Robert shot the photograph for the cover. I couldn't decide on which tie to wear that morning, so I grabbed a wide piece of French satin ribbon and fashioned my own. I let it hang loose to give off that Frank Sinatra irreverence. As if to say, "Yeah, I got my tie, but I'll wear it my way." 
   
  In the '80s my husband, the late Fred "Sonic" Smith, always chose a tie that reflected the task at hand. When we traveled through the Amazon, a khaki shirt with a brown wool tie gave him the air of a correspondent for National Geographic. An understated tie on the golf course saluted the gentleman amateur. When he played sax, he added a loosened black dinner tie as redefined by John Coltrane. When he played electric guitar, be often chose the racetrack/Abstract Expressionist lookdark shirt, darker tie. He had several ties in his wardrobe. When he received one for Christ­mas, he always took the time to try it on, whether adorned with ducks, dice, or fishing rods or hand-painted by Jerry Garcia. He valued the tie as a symbol of order meant to be reinvented. 
   
  For me the tie still holds. When I dress for the stage, there is little fuss involved. A black jacket, black pegged pants, a white shirt, andwhether a length of satin, a black mourning ribbon, a leather bola, or a classic four-in-handalways a tie. It is an accessory that can affirm ones individuality. They are now appearing on the catwalk, gracing the necks of the girls. They are not just for the boys anymore. 
   
  

weapons of mass destruction-related program activities <spamtony> wrote:
  Andrew F Wilson (andrewfwilson) wrote:
> 
> The March 2006 issue of Harper's Bazaar includes a two page article
> written by Patti about ties. It doesn't seem to be available online.

And I waited so long to ge get it, it's no longer available
in the flesh, as I discovered last night. Any particularly
potent pearls of wisdom? 


		
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