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Once upon a time, there was a tie brand. Founded in the 1920s and known as Holliday & Brown, it became, like Ballantyne in cashmere sweaters, a byword for British luxury in its field. However, it faded from view and, perhaps, from existence, until resuscitated and re-animated a short while ago.
I unfortunately don't know much about the early history of Holliday & Brown. Allegedly they were at the forefront of Swinging London in the 1960s, with a back catalog of stunning patterns which served as inspiration for certain Prada collections five or six years ago. Perhaps those models were like this one, a slim tie made for a men's shop in Manchester:
Of course, the Internet Gentleman inspecting this tie will find little that makes it stand out among quality ties: handmade, apparently - there's a slip stitch in there somewhere, but construction is not seven-fold. The keeper is the label. Tipping may be silk or it may be acetate. The pattern is interesting. As the inimitable Oscar Udeshi pointed out, H&B's details depended on what its retailer ordered.
Like certain other clothiers associated with the 1960s (the infamous Mr. Fish comes to mind), H&B came to locate itself on Conduit St in the Savile Row area. Now Richard James has his so-called Bespoke shop located there. I mentioned above that H&B came to be associated with ur-Britishness, and as such appropriated by the Italians. What else can explain this "napkin-width" tie with the monogram of Queen Elizabeth II, made for Ugolini in Florence , perhaps for her Jubilee?
Note the thick woven silk and the intricate pattern. Not an accident that Marinella used to state it acquired its silks from H&B and a defunct competitor, Sambrook Witting. Although neither were, to my knowledge, directly involved in weaving silks. Detail:
As Oscar said, H&B's creations depended on the orders retailers placed with them. The following is certainly one of their more bizarre, for the Jermyn Street shirtmakers Hilditch & Key, for whom they used to make handmade ties. That ended quite a while ago, but at "the once legendary" Paris boutique of Hildeetch, one can still find some very sober H&B madders and other conservative tie models, all likely 20 years old... Nothing like this, with a pattern of Hilditch & Key shirts. A tie so hideous it's amusing.
Throughout this time H&B made ties for select retailers such as Barneys New York and Cable Car Clothiers, including the quite charming woven motif below.
A visit to Cable Car in the early noughties and an inquiry provoked this reaction from their antediluvian salesperson: Holliday & Brown? They're out of business, over. Certainly the models they had on display looked like they had been there 20 years. By the end of the 1990s, rumors of H&B's demise were swirling about. The New York Times profiled a tie company named Hunters Savile Row, which was supposedly formed by two former employees of the defunct Holliday & Brown. Hunters sold some truly hideous ties (picture repeating "MBA" patterns) and is long out of business. In 2001 or 2002, British tiemaker Michelsons was sold to Mantero, an Italian silk company, and with it Holliday & Brown, which had come under its control. In acquiring H&B, Mantero acquired, apparently, its back catalog, which led to its appropriation by Prada for a line of ties, pocket squares, shirts and more. Below, a Prada "Special re-edition" of H&B. Notice the double tags and the truly bizarrely crappy machine edging.
Motifs were allegedly magnified from old patterns in the H&B archives, perhaps like the following -- an old H&B handkerchief. Note the machine stitching and the use of a sticker as a label..
I unfortunately don't know much about the early history of Holliday & Brown. Allegedly they were at the forefront of Swinging London in the 1960s, with a back catalog of stunning patterns which served as inspiration for certain Prada collections five or six years ago. Perhaps those models were like this one, a slim tie made for a men's shop in Manchester:
Of course, the Internet Gentleman inspecting this tie will find little that makes it stand out among quality ties: handmade, apparently - there's a slip stitch in there somewhere, but construction is not seven-fold. The keeper is the label. Tipping may be silk or it may be acetate. The pattern is interesting. As the inimitable Oscar Udeshi pointed out, H&B's details depended on what its retailer ordered.
Like certain other clothiers associated with the 1960s (the infamous Mr. Fish comes to mind), H&B came to locate itself on Conduit St in the Savile Row area. Now Richard James has his so-called Bespoke shop located there. I mentioned above that H&B came to be associated with ur-Britishness, and as such appropriated by the Italians. What else can explain this "napkin-width" tie with the monogram of Queen Elizabeth II, made for Ugolini in Florence , perhaps for her Jubilee?
Note the thick woven silk and the intricate pattern. Not an accident that Marinella used to state it acquired its silks from H&B and a defunct competitor, Sambrook Witting. Although neither were, to my knowledge, directly involved in weaving silks. Detail:
As Oscar said, H&B's creations depended on the orders retailers placed with them. The following is certainly one of their more bizarre, for the Jermyn Street shirtmakers Hilditch & Key, for whom they used to make handmade ties. That ended quite a while ago, but at "the once legendary" Paris boutique of Hildeetch, one can still find some very sober H&B madders and other conservative tie models, all likely 20 years old... Nothing like this, with a pattern of Hilditch & Key shirts. A tie so hideous it's amusing.
Throughout this time H&B made ties for select retailers such as Barneys New York and Cable Car Clothiers, including the quite charming woven motif below.
A visit to Cable Car in the early noughties and an inquiry provoked this reaction from their antediluvian salesperson: Holliday & Brown? They're out of business, over. Certainly the models they had on display looked like they had been there 20 years. By the end of the 1990s, rumors of H&B's demise were swirling about. The New York Times profiled a tie company named Hunters Savile Row, which was supposedly formed by two former employees of the defunct Holliday & Brown. Hunters sold some truly hideous ties (picture repeating "MBA" patterns) and is long out of business. In 2001 or 2002, British tiemaker Michelsons was sold to Mantero, an Italian silk company, and with it Holliday & Brown, which had come under its control. In acquiring H&B, Mantero acquired, apparently, its back catalog, which led to its appropriation by Prada for a line of ties, pocket squares, shirts and more. Below, a Prada "Special re-edition" of H&B. Notice the double tags and the truly bizarrely crappy machine edging.
Motifs were allegedly magnified from old patterns in the H&B archives, perhaps like the following -- an old H&B handkerchief. Note the machine stitching and the use of a sticker as a label..
