In days gone by and I am talking about the 70’s and 80’s, the majority of ties were woven ties albeit not the best quality of weave either but the same could be said for printed ties.’

In fact, when it came to printed ties, the quality of both the fabric and the process of print did not allow for the best outcome and that’s being polite!

So as a result, woven ties became the more sought after of custom ties whether it was as corporate ties, company ties, branded ties, promotional ties, school ties, matric ties sports ties or whatever tie you would care to think of.

So when the first printed ties arrived and I am talking about printed ties of a specific quality which was in the 1980’s, there was an immediate block against ordering printed ties.

I am not meaning that nobody was allowed to order printed ties but there was quite a mindset against printed ties in favour of woven ties.

However, what printed ties very quickly established was the clarity of design and use of bold colours as opposed to woven ties which always tended to be more low key, in fact veering towards being dull and dull many woven ties certainly were.

There was not a huge ability for the weavers at that time to experiment with bold colours and way out designs and frankly anyway, that’s not what the customer wanted- they wanted something more conservative for the most part, they were not used to bold design and bright colours.

However, printed ties very quickly took their place in neck wear society because of the fact that the client was now able to have something a little more different, namely fashion corporate ties and for a very long time and still is the case in many cases today, the preference is for something a little more exciting.

The old process of sublimation was extremely laborious and exact unlike today where changes can be made on a whim and samples can be created with little or no effort and at a relatively small cost, it was not the same back then.

Samples were made but heaven forbid if they were rejected because then it was a whole remake which literally took hours.

So back then, it was really necessary to ensure that prior to samples of printed ties were made, the client had signed off to the design pretty much understanding that although they received a sample, it was only really to look at and not to change.

How far we have come with printed ties- custom ties. and for that matter, how far we have come with woven ties as the process to manufacture woven ties in most cases has also been simplified.

It is much quicker than it was for woven ties but sadly still nowhere as quick as making printed ties, there is a huge difference in flexibility.