ALL TIED UP

So much of the Eloise collection is inspired by visuals from our childhood, those images that flood our mind when we think of Eloise and Odie and that whole era of our lives. Oddly, one of those is western ties.

“You know, it’s kind of funny, really, that that’s one of the images that stands out so much to me when I think about that period in my life, because it’s not like Odie was always in a tie,” Cheryl laughed. “He wasn’t really known for working, and when he did it was usually horses or something else hands-on. I think it probably just really captivated me as a child, to see these illustrations – what to me were basically cartoons – on a grown-up’s tie. It was the juxtaposition of whimsical and formal, I think, and I was drawn to the colors and that airbrushed aesthetic.”

The fashion fad was a bit of a flash in the pan, appropriately coinciding with the heyday of the Hollywood cowboy in the mid 20th Century. Surfacing on the scene in the 1940s and being their most prevalent in the 1950s, these ties were typically a rayon or rayon-nylon blend, as was pretty typical of the time, and in a slightly wider silhouette that worked to accommodate the images. Perhaps the most famous maker of these ties – particularly the ones we recall and reimagined into this collection – was Pilgrim, and you can still find vintage versions for sale on Ebay and Etsy.

In designing Eloise, we felt that whole aesthetic perfectly coincided with the whole Till Goodan and retro-rodeo vibes that color this collection, but we don’t much fancy ourselves as the tie-wearing type, so we brought the look to life in other, more wearable ways. One of the fan favorites among this collection’s casuals is the Grandpa’s Tie Top, which is a light blue long-sleeved beauty that pretty literally translates that whole airbrushed and illustrated concept into a scaled-up version. We also kind tied it in to another top – the Cowboys Up My Sleeve Top – in a more subtle way, leaving the torso as a field of stars, but adorning the long sleeves with little fence-sitting characters intertwined with rope, very much the type of scene you’d see on one of these old ties. We suppose that’s the fun of fashion – take a look you like and make it work for you!