There's a question I get asked more often than you might expect, and it usually comes from someone in a procurement or HR role who is trying to pull together a coherent uniform or corporate identity look for their organisation. The question goes something like this: "We're ordering custom ties for the men, but what do we do about the women?" It's a fair question, and honestly, I think the answer has been staring the corporate world in the face for decades. Corporate scarves and custom ties are not two separate product conversations — they are two sides of the same coin, and the sooner organisations realise this, the better their branded identity programmes will look.

Let me give you a bit of context, because I think it helps to understand where neckwear as a category actually comes from. The tie itself has a fascinating origin story. Back in the day, Croatian mercenaries fighting in 17th century France wore knotted cloths around their necks as part of their military dress, and the French — being the French — noticed. King Louis XIII apparently took such a liking to the style that neckwear became fashionable almost overnight among European aristocracy. From military practicality to courtly elegance in one generation. What strikes me about this history is that neckwear was never purely functional. It was always also a signal — of rank, of belonging, of identity. That thread, if you'll pardon the pun, runs directly into the corporate world of today.

The British public school tradition cemented the idea that specific custom ties meant membership of a specific group, and South Africa inherited that tradition enthusiastically through its own school ties heritage. Anyone who went to a South African school with a proper uniform knows exactly what I mean. The ties as custom ties were a badge. It said something about who you were and where you belonged. Corporate identity programmes in the 1960s through to the 1980s essentially borrowed this logic wholesale, and corporate ties became standard kit for banks, airlines, insurance companies, and anyone else who wanted their customer-facing staff to project a unified image.

But here's where things get interesting, and where I would say the industry has been a little slow to catch up. As workforces became more gender-diverse and uniform policies evolved to reflect that, organisations started ordering custom ties for their male staff and then scrambling to find something — anything — that offered the same branded coherence for their female staff. Corporate scarves were always the obvious answer, but it was treated as an afterthought rather than a considered part of the identity system. I've seen it time and again: beautifully designed custom ties with precise colour matching and quality weaving, paired with corporate scarves that were clearly sourced separately and don't quite match. Don't get me wrong, any branded accessory is better than none, but the missed opportunity is real.

What we do at Vinuchi is treat corporate scarves and custom ties as a unified brief from the start. The colour palette, the design elements, the weight and drape of the fabric — all of these decisions should be made together, because that's how you achieve genuine visual coherence across your entire team. These days, with so much attention being paid to employer branding and the visual presentation of staff in customer-facing environments, this kind of integrated thinking matters more than ever. One could say the bar has simply been raised, and organisations that still treat neckwear as a last-minute uniform add-on are going to look it.

The manufacturing side of this is also worth understanding. Printed ties versus woven ties affect how a design translates differently on a custom ties versus corporate scarves, and a quality manufacturer needs to account for that from the design stage. At Vinuchi, we've invested in understanding how to carry a corporate identity across both product types without losing the integrity of the design in translation. That's not a trivial challenge, and it's one reason I'd always encourage organisations to work with proper custom tie manufacturers rather than resellers who are simply sourcing offshore and badging the product.

Where I see this going is genuinely exciting. As corporate dress codes continue to evolve and organisations look for ways to express identity that feel contemporary rather than stiff, the thoughtfully designed branded accessory — whether it's custom ties or corporate scarves — becomes more valuable, not less. The brands that will wear this well, if you'll allow me another pun, are the ones who approach it with the same seriousness they'd bring to any other piece of their visual identity.