If you haven’t put on a tie yet, then head over to your closet and dust off your pheasant tie in honor of National Bird Day. If you don’t have a pheasant tie— or any other kind of avian-themed neckwear — then you can at least honor the day by shopping for one. Above, J. Press tie on eBay.
Bird Dog Bay offers a ton of winged ties:
You can also wear a pheasant around your waist, as in this belt from Country Club Prep:
And of course there are the inevitable pheasant critter pants; these are from Polo:
For your web-browsing soundtrack, jazz-Ivy cats should put on Charlie Parker — nickname, “Bird.” Or Donald Byrd. Or perhaps William Byrd is more your cup of tea.
As for my headline, please excuse the fowl language. — CC
Thanks, Christian. I wish I had known! I’m wearing a brown tweed suit today that would have been great with a green pheasant tie in challis that I have. I went with a brown, blue, green and red plaid wool bowtie instead. Perhaps tomorrow. Great looking jacket in the picture, by the way. The critter cords are a bit much for me personally, but I would be very happy with any of the Ben Silver ties. Best wishes from the sunny (albeit frigid) South. 13 degrees this morning at my place at the bottom of the Blue Ridge. Definitely tweed weather.
I wore one of the Ben Silver ties today which is one of my favorites.
Anyone who wears a pheasant themed tie, belt, or critter pant that either a) has never hunted wild pheasants, or b) lives outside of the pheasant range is a grade-A poser.
Bird Dog Bay makes some very nice ties. I have a handful of them and enjoy them quite a bit.
@Seve – Thus, since I do not hunt pheasants, do not live in Asia (the region of origin for nearly all birds in the pheasant family), and am unaware of any large introduced population in my part of Virginia, I o not own pheasant themed attire. I should have worn the duck motif. Que sera, sera.
Thanks for the nice made-up rule, Seve. Please feel free to observe it to your heart’s content. The rest of us will wear whatever we please.
@Henry Contestwinner The rest of you will look like Japanese tourists in “Ivy” costumes walking around Harvard Square.
Seve,
Please, by all means, dress in a way that makes you comfortable. If you feel you don’t have the “right” to wear pheasant-festooned ties, then don’t! Just don’t pretend that there is some rule preventing others from enjoying game birds on their clothes, or that you have any particular authority on this topic.
There are valid arguments regarding regimental striped ties, crests for actual organizations, and the like. But “no game animals on your clothes unless you hunt them or live in an area where they’re found”? Criminy! Next thing you know, people like Seve will be telling us not to wear brogues unless the holes are functional and we live amongst the bogs!
I’m getting concerned. I did not attend Alabama. May I still wear my red and white striped OCBD? As a W&L alum, I guess I am safe with a blue suit with white chalk stripes. And since I once shot a skunk that had been living under a shed behind my house, I imagine that the black and white stripes would be okay as well. Never having shot a mythological creature, however, I’m not sure what to do about the old brown BB tie with griffins.
@Charlottesville – I guess you are stuck with blue & white regimental ties, absent some fraternal or military association with crimson and white. You could adopt the local, and go orange & blue (wear whatever regimental you please). Either way, I do not suggest trying to hunt Griffins, you might be mistaken for being a bit of a loon (a different bird motif). That said, I never much liked the pheasant motif, thus, in that sense, since I do not hunt the bird, I don’t wear. I don’t think I would wear a hippo tie either. To be repetitive, que sera, sera.
Since I didn’t attend Brown, do I have to get rid of all my brown clothes & accessories?
It was very quiet here on National Bird Day. I thought everyone was out shooting the birds.
@Charlottesville
Another vote for the orange & blue.
My orange & blue repp tie is one of my favorites. It has nothing to do with birds, of course, pheasant, peacock, or sparrow. I was in Manhattan one day at a restaurant in the late afternoon wearing that tie. A very pretty young woman sitting at the next table asked me if I was a University of Virginia alum. A little dumbfounded, I said, no and asked her why did she ask me that. She said, “Your tie has the colors of UVA, orange and blue.”
That started a nice conversation that led to buying her a drink, sitting at her table, going out that night, going out on several dates, and …. So, even though I am a Yankee, I have great affection for the UVA and its colors. Birds, not so much. I never got a date wearing peacocks or pheasants.
And, what is so nice about wearing orange and blue is that no one gives a fowl’s fart whether I went to UVA or not. I can wear it with impunity, and do.
Loafer – I also have a 1950’s Georg Jensen sterling tie bar shaped like a dolphin, which my wife gave me a few years ago. Not having shot any dolphins, I guess I must send that the way of your hypothetical hippo tie. The loon motif, however, might be fitting in an academic environment like mine. Especially in blue and orange.
Henry — Let me know if you receive a final authoritative ruling on brown clothing. I’m afraid most of my tweeds, to say nothing of my shoes, will need to be shipped to their lawful wearers in Rhode Island.
Ward – I suppose that I will have to overcome my scruples in the matter of school ties and make sure to wear an orange and blue model (with white OCBD, navy blazer and penny loafers completing what is still a prominent local look) when next I am in Manhattan. In all seriousness, I tend to get a fair number of unsolicited compliments from strangers when in New York on things like seersucker suits that are seen as fairly routine down here in the hinterlands. And people say New Yorkers aren’t friendly!
I think critter motifs are inherently ridiculous, and wouldn’t wear them under any circumstances.
However, “rules” such as the one articulated above about who can and can’t wear specific critters are even more ridiculous.
I’ve known people who’ve gone so far as to wear trousers with little whales embroidered on them. I guarantee you that none of them ever took to sea in a small boat with a harpoon in his hand, looking for the thrill and adventure of a Nantucket sleigh-ride.
Quote: “I think critter motifs are inherently ridiculous.”
Good, then you get them.
If I wear an elephant motif belt, does that mean I have shot Republicans?
… and with their own guns!
I have a pig emblematic tie that I got from Press last year, but I only wear it on days when I eat pork. I really like the tie so my I’ve changed my diet substantially to work around that. Oink oink!
I’d like a ruling here.
Tomorrow, I plan to wear a mallard duck motif tie. I am not a duck hunter, but I was graduated from the Univeristy of Oregon, whose mascot is a duck (but not a mallard). May I wear my tie without being a grade-A “poser” (or even a poseur)?
@Henry – I think you’re safe. That mallard tie would only make you a grade-B poseur. Wear it with poseur pride!
“I’ve known people who’ve gone so far as to wear trousers with little whales embroidered on them. I guarantee you that none of them ever took to sea in a small boat with a harpoon in his hand, looking for the thrill and adventure of a Nantucket sleigh-ride.”
Yes, but they probably have all read Moby Dick in college, and that’s good enough. Capt’n Ahab wore similar pants. He believed that if he wore his whale pants, they would bring ol’ Moby up from the depths so he could kill him. The pants were meticulously embroidered by Queequeg, the harpooner. Ahab secretly envied Queequeg’s tattoos, but knew if he marked up his body, the WASPs in Boston would no longer fund his boating enterprises because, as we all know, tattoos are low-brow, Hence, the pants. This is the way “critter pants’ originated.
But, I digress. These guys hunted whales. They were tough characters living in the close quarters of a whale boat for months on end, searching out and fighting whales. This was no fly fishing expedition. It was very challenging living. It’s also very challenging to slog through Melville’s Moby Dick. It’s because of this literary challenge that all who read Moby Dick are, by the British Royal Society of Sanctioned Social Standards (BRSSSS), in the “Whale Club” and are qualified to wear whale pants. Why are the Brits involved in an American novel, you might ask? Because Moby Dick was first published in London (as The Wale), so they have first dibs. You can get your certificate directly from the BRSSSS by filling out the application form and proving you didn’t cheat by reading the Cliff Notes. It takes about four months.
All of these mentioned look fine on a tie. What does not look fine is to wear a necktie at half mast with the top button open as someone from THE RAKE advised recently.
I’m glad someone mentioned mallard ducks. The wife’s sister, for years, has given us mallard duck items as a gag gift. We’ve gotten stuffed mallard dolls, plaques to hang on the wall, drinking glasses, etc. Last summer, she gave us a ceramic duck. It happened that I recognized it as a smoking pipe stand. However, it’s beak had been broken and reglued in some past era.
I rescued it and now it holds my prized Hilson Viva Largo. Had one in the 1970’s, and found another on ETSY earlier this year. Great pipes.
Never had a bird tie, though.
@Ward, I believe the formal name for the infamous whale is “Moby Richard”
Nice photo I took.
I scored that very necktie on Ebay and routinely wear it year round. It goes with everything. Later purchased the pheasant belt in the summer of ’21. Both remind me of my formative years in SE Pennsylvania when ring-necked pheasants with their odd metallic caw were a common sight. Especially in the late fall once the corn fields had been harvested. Also used to hear ’em in the woods surrounding my late maternal grandparents’ place all of the time.
Kind Regards,
Heinz-Ulrich