Look at enough ties in one sitting and the patterns start to blur into each other. That is usually the moment a tie with cartoon ducks on it begins to look like a reasonable idea. Step back.
There are not hundreds of tie patterns. There are about seven families, and almost everything you will see in a shop is a variation on one of them. Once you can name them, choosing gets easier, because you stop comparing individual ties and start deciding how much pattern the outfit can take.
Here are the families, what each one actually is, and when it works.
Stripes
Stripes are the most common patterned tie and the easiest to wear, because the eye reads a diagonal line as order rather than as decoration.
You will meet three versions. The university stripe runs diagonal bands of equal width, usually alternating with navy. The American regimental runs from the right shoulder down to the left. The British regimental runs the other way, from the left shoulder over the heart down to the right. The direction is the whole difference, and it is the detail most people never notice until it is pointed out.
The block stripe is the fourth, and the most useful of them. Instead of many thin bands it uses two or three wide ones, so it reads as a two-colour tie from across a room and as a pattern up close. That makes it the striped tie that behaves in a boardroom.
Stripes are more common in formal settings, but with the right width and colours they work outside one. If you want that relaxed polish without a stripe, reach for texture instead: a Forest Green Grenadine is a leno weave, and its open structure does with texture what a stripe does with line.
Black and Grey Block Striped Shantung Tie
Handmade in Como, Italy
How to choose your size
- 6′ and under
- Standard
- Over 6′
- Extra Long
Details & Care
- Block Striped
- Shantung
- 100% Silk from Como, Italy; Shantung
- Three-Fold
- Dry Clean Only
- Handmade in Italy
Delivery & Returns
Free delivery to the United States on orders over $135 USD.
Free returns and exchanges. See our return policy.
Client Service
Hours
Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm MST
Closed weekends and statutory holidays
Reach us
1 800 595 0276
office@aklasu.co
For how to wear a striped tie against a striped shirt or suit without the two fighting, see striped ties, shirts and suits.
Dots
Dots cover a wider range than most people expect, and the size of the dot decides the formality.
A polka dot is the largest and the most playful. It is not the tie for a first meeting with a new client, but it earns its place at a wedding or an evening out, and a spaced dot against a solid shirt reads as considered rather than loud.
A pin dot is the same idea shrunk down until the dots almost disappear. From two paces it looks like a solid tie with a faint shimmer, which makes it the most formal patterned tie you can own. Birdseye is its close relative, woven rather than printed, with a tiny dot formed by the weave itself.
The rule across all three: the smaller the dot, the more formal the tie.
Houndstooth
Broken checks in a four-pointed shape, named for the uneven outline of a hound's tooth. The pattern is associated with Dior and Chanel, and it has kept a certain confidence because of it.
Houndstooth is a middle-weight pattern. It is too busy for a formal evening and too structured to read as casual, which puts it exactly where most working wardrobes live: the office, and the days you want the outfit noticed slightly.
Glen Check
Often confused with houndstooth, and understandably, because glen check is built from small houndstooth units grouped into larger irregular squares. It dates to Scottish estates in the 1800s and was popularised first by King George IV and later by Edward VII as Prince of Wales, which is why you will also see it sold as Prince of Wales check.
The royal association makes it sound formal. In practice it is one of the most versatile patterns in the range, because it is essentially grey. It works against grey tones and soft blues, and against a pressed white shirt it gives contrast without colour.
Herringbone
Named for its resemblance to the backbone of a herring: short parallel lines set in alternating diagonal columns.
Herringbone is a woven pattern rather than a printed one, so it changes with the light instead of sitting flat. In a suit it can be a lot. In a tie it is one of the quietest patterns you can wear, which makes it useful when you want interest without an obvious motif.
Foulard and Medallion
Foulard is a small-scale printed pattern of repeating geometric shapes, set at regular intervals against a solid ground. Diamonds, crosses, florals and, occasionally, animals.
The medallion is the most recognisable foulard: a small circular motif, often with a centre point, repeated in a grid. It is the pattern most people picture when they think of a printed silk tie.
Two cautions. Foulard is printed rather than woven, so the quality of the silk and the printing shows immediately at close range. And scale matters more here than in any other family: if your eye goes to the tie before it goes to the man, the motif is too large or the colours are fighting. Choose the understated version. Novelty prints are the one place the duck problem is real.
Tonal and Shadow Stripe
The last family barely counts as a pattern, which is the point. A tonal stripe is a stripe in the same colour as the ground, visible only because the weave direction changes. A shadow stripe is the same trick run softer still.
From any distance these read as solid ties. Up close they have somewhere for the eye to go. If you want a patterned tie that will never be the wrong choice, this is the family to start in.
Where to Start
If you own no patterned ties, buy in this order. A block stripe first, because it is the one you will reach for most. Then a pin dot or a tonal stripe, for the days a solid feels too plain and a pattern feels like too much. Then glen check, which will go with more of your wardrobe than you expect. Houndstooth, herringbone and foulard come after that, once you know which end of the range you actually wear.
Pattern is only half of it. The other half is how the tie is built, which is covered in the anatomy of a tie, and what it is built from, in the best material for a tie.
Striped Dusty Rose Shantung
Handmade in Como, Italy
How to choose your size
- 6′ and under
- Standard
- Over 6′
- Extra Long
Details & Care
- Striped
- Shantung
- 100% Silk from Como, Italy; Shantung
- Three-Fold
- Dry Clean Only
- Handmade in Italy
Delivery & Returns
Free delivery to the United States on orders over $135 USD.
Free returns and exchanges. See our return policy.
Client Service
Hours
Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm MST
Closed weekends and statutory holidays
Reach us
1 800 595 0276
office@aklasu.co
