The Bow Tie Book

Image of The Bow Tie Book
Release Date: 
April 7, 2015
Publisher/Imprint: 
Rizzoli
Pages: 
128
Reviewed by: 

The year 2015 has started off in an unusual way for the world of fashion, especially when it comes to books. This year, the prevailing mood seems to have lightened and invited the reader to explore different and alternate facets of fashion—not just clothes and their designers.

The Bow Tie Book is such a foray that is amusing, informative, easy on the eyes, and generally very lighthearted. Mr. Hancock offers us a brief but meaningful history of the accessory and then proceeds to offer us photographic proof of today’s aficionados. The physicality of the book makes it perfect for gift giving as well as allowing the reader to get lost in it while reading.

There is very little if any pictorial evidence to support the historical aspects of the bowtie. And what is puzzling about the photographs that there is little identification of the subjects or of the subject matter, i.e. who is it in each photograph or which collection featured bow ties as the preferred neckwear.

It is these details that detract from the book’s full potential as the reader might become more engaged to know that “so and so” is a doctor or a waiter and why he opts for bow ties as the tie of choice. Not all the world would know who Brad Goresky is or care but possibly a very brief description could help. The gravitas of the book might have also been bolstered and its audience broadened by quoting a few of the more contemporary designers and or notable personalities and not so many of the anonymous “everyman” wearers.

Personally, I found the graphics of the book enormously appealing, but it is the text/photographs that needed to have been fortified. Right now its contents come off as a scrapbook with an introduction while as a whole it should have been so much more than it is in its finished state.