Duchamp London

THE HISTORY OF THE TIE

As fascinating as a butterfly’s wing, a Duchamp tie is a marvellous amalgam of art and technology. Take a magnifying glass to examine the bewilderingly intricate patterns and the exquisite three-dimensional reliefs built up by fine silk threads. Enjoy the “handle” of the tie, that pleasing fullness that comes from having a generous silk fabric embracing a soft wool-based interlining.

Notice how precisely the tie has been cut, folded, trimmed and hand-sewn to look immaculate every time it is worn. And consider how many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years of expertise and devotion have gone into to creating every single one of Duchamp’s amazing signature neckwear pieces.

To weave its fabrics Duchamp uses the Vanners mill in Sudbury, Suffolk, the acknowledged expert in the highly specialised field of silk weaving. Vanners has been focused on producing brilliant neckwear fabrics for 100 years and has an amazing archive of almost 150,000 designs. Before Duchamp’s new season’s designs can be created, however, its new colour palette has to be decided upon. This crucial decision takes well over a month to arrive at – the Duchamp design team start with a huge selection of ideas and then keep refining and refining them down until they arrive at the handful that will comprise the newest offering.

This colour selection process is obviously time-consuming and it is costly too, as sample colourways are woven and then discarded – or at least put on one side for perhaps another year. The colours that currently enliven the Duchamp autumn 09 collection were selected way back in the late summer and early autumn 2008. Unlike most of the fashion business, Duchamp has never been interested in colour trend forecasts or what’s “in”. For the past 15 years, Duchamp’s tie designs always have jumped out for attention on their own merit. What’s selected is what feels right for that particular season. Bright green, the received wisdom goes, is a bad colour for men’s ties, yet Duchamp’s Amazonia collection of vivid green ties for Autumn 09 has been among its best-sellers. So much for received wisdom…

Once the new colours have been isolated, the work on the actual designs commences. Each season, some 70% of the Duchamp collection is new. Anything up to 100 designs are created, woven into fabrics and made up into sample ties, but only about 60 or 65 ever make it to the final

A further complication for the design team is that the designs can be viewed in many different colour combinations or “colourways”, to use the fashion industry jargon. Duchamp’s silk fabrics are so complex that they can have as many as 8 colours running from left to right (the “weft” options) and 6 running the length of the fabric (the “warp” variations). So up to 48 possibilities have to be considered before the usual three colourways that are in the shops are decided upon. Creativity takes time!

The most modern computer-aided design systems enable Duchamp’s complex ideas to be realised at the mill. Silk yarns that start out as a basic pearl white shade are dyed to whatever colour the designers require, the choice is limited only by their imagination. The first part of the weaving process involves the creation of the warps, the base yarns that runs the full length of the tie. Setting up the warp machine can take a whole day for just a simple design. The silk fibres are remarkable in themselves, being used in a 2-ply format in which two threads are spun together to create a stronger fibre. Yet this is a form of micro-engineering that takes the breath away, a 2-ply yarn is so fine that there are an incredible 350 threads to the inch on the warp. Just check them out with your magnifying glass.

Once the warp is prepared it is loaded on to a loom and the weft (the fibres running across the fabric) are woven in. Once again, Duchamp uses the most sophisticated looms, but human skill is still required to prepare the machines it usually takes an entire week to prepare to the loom to weave a typical Duchamp fabric.

Using the jacquard weaving process, the looms are able to build up the tremendously intricate and delicate signature Duchamp looks, actually creating a 3-D effect with the build up of fine silk threads. To provide the desired “fullness” in the tie, Duchamp uses mainly the exceptionally generous 7-ply yarns in the weft, which are far more substantial than the 4-ply that most other tie manufacturers use.

Once the literally gorgeous Duchamp fabrics are ready, they are shipped to Duchamp’s specialist tie makers who use the classic hand-made techniques that mark out a true English tie. Based to the east of London, the firm takes two years to train its seamstresses to put together the neat and faultless decorative accessory that is the tie. While the elements of the tie may be few the art comes in getting everything just right, just perfect, every time.

The fabric for the tie is cut into three pieces; the blade or wide front part, the tail or narrow back part, and the gusset, the piece that links the two others. Cutting the fabric is done by hand and it is always cut “on the bias”. This means that the tie’s sections are cut out at a 45º angle. While this does mean some of the fabric is wasted, it is essential because it allows the tie to hang properly and lay properly time after time after time.

The first element to be added is the “tipping”, the usually contrast-coloured pieces that can be seen at the underside of the tie ends. Decorative and bright as they are, their practical purpose is to cover up the raw edges of the tie fabric. Duchamp ensures it has the neatest examples in the business thanks to a remarkable Italian automatic sewing machine that brings the tie fabric and the tipping together in a consistently neat and accurate way. Duchamp’s makers have the only examples of this machine in the country.

Creating a sharp point at each end of the tie is the next stage of the process. Once again, it takes months of training to achieve the skill to produce this time after time. Once the points are completed, the three pieces of the tie are sewn together. By this time the item has the silhouette of the tie, but one with a huge 1970s kipper tie-like profile. A Duchamp tie has a blade of 9.5cms, but at its widest the cut fabric measures 25cms. The real difference between a hand-made tie and a machine-made one is the manner in which the fabric is lovingly folded inwards and hand-stitched to create the finished article.

To give the tie its attractive volume, a wool-based interlining, laser-cut for a precision fit, is sewn in by hand. Then, with the tie lying frontside down, the seamstress or “slipper”, to use the technical term deftly folds the two edges of the fabric inwards until they meet. She then hand-sews or “slips” stitches through the fabric and into the interlining, thereby securing the two. Of course, she must not sew through the interlining to the front of the tie. Great care has to be taken to make the bar tack at the end of the seam secure and, in a trademark feature, a slipknot is created at the tail end so that the natural stretch of the silk is allowed for. To marvel at the expertise of the “slipper”, just carefully examine the near-invisible stitching down the “spine” of your Duchamp tie.

Essential details to be sewn on the nearly-finished tie are the loop to secure the tail, the fabric content label, the elegant Duchamp badge and the small label which proudly declares “Hand Made In England”. To complete and preserve its neat appearance, the tie is pressed with steam rather than directly with an iron.

Before the Duchamp tie can leave the factory, it has to pass a rigorous inspection in which all the elements and individual details are checked, the length and width are measured and the stitching is closely appraised. Only when everything is declared perfect can the tie despatched to the Duchamp shop or stockist where it awaits another happy customer who can delight in its splendour.

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | Craftmanship