Corporate Ties have long been in fashion.

You may say- how can I call corporate ties a fashion item? But in fact, corporate ties have long been a fashion item.

In fact, in South Africa, the foremost company to manufacture corporate fashion ties was Vinuchi. This started in the early 80’s and has continued since then.

Corporate ties, whether fashion ties or more conservative ties have long held an important position in company attire. In fact, for many years, it was the only type of corporate attire worn together with corporate scarves which also began their days in South Africa as fashion corporate ties and corporate scarves in the early 80’s.

The history of fashionable corporate ties is quite an illustrious one from the point of view that professional designers took a lot of time and care to ensure that the customer received the most fashionable look they could achieve.

We went through all types of design - geometric corporate ties were for many years the preferred type of design. There was also paisley which as one knows goes in and out of fashion on an ongoing basis and has been around for way longer than the fashion corporate ties have been around.

Then there was what we called a storyboard effect which meant that a story was created around the subject of the corporate ties meant for a specific company or organisation.

For example, many corporate ties over the years were done for SAB. Many of these were what one would call storyboard ties and by that, I mean that the whole theme of the tie would be about the company and what the company does, so there would be all types of elements such as beer barrels and all the elements that went into the brewing of beer and even as far as showing people drinking the beer so that one could look carefully at the design of these storyboard ties and work out a whole story that these corporate ties were trying to tell.

Likewise, schools have asked us to include a famous building or focal point within the school building or grounds, especially those schools with a long and illustrious history.

These school ties were often made up and sold as old boys' ties which in a way were more corporate ties than school ties because they would generally be worn in a corporate environment as corporate ties.

And what a talking point these well-designed school ties would make, especially if one recognised a tie being worn and recognised a specific emblem, item or building within the design of the tie.

Immediately, a bond is formed over knowing that both parties grew up and were educated at the same school with the same school ties.

But I digress. Corporate ties are still and always were an important part of any company or institution's overall makeup. May be much less now than before but even still, they were certainly a popular item and to this day in many company environments, corporate ties are still a winner!