Successful Men Tie, Tie Again

To some men, a tie is no mere scrap of silk but something to collect by the hundreds. They can never have enough.

They sport a new one every day, and they think nothing of spending $100 or more for that one great tie.

Russ Williams is one of those men. The 30-year-old stockbroker from Corona del Mar buys 30 to 40 ties every year. On this particular day, he’s wearing a navy silk tie with eye-popping bright yellow dots.

He shops for ties whenever he’s on business in New York or Washington, cities where he built up much of his collection while working as a presidential appointee for the Reagan and Bush administrations. His favorite tie-hunting grounds include Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Gary’s in Fashion Island Newport Beach, and Ermenegildo Zegna in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa.

Among the prizes in his collection: an old Perry Ellis tie printed with the skulls of cattle.

“It sounds worse than it is,” Williams says. “I saw it in GQ Magazine. The skulls are pretty subtle.”

When his closet gets too filled with ties, he rounds up a bunch of them and sells them to friends and co-workers for about $10 each.

“Sometimes you buy them and wear them once,” he says. “I have 60 in the trunk of my car (for sale) right now.”

Why pay $120 for a tie, as Williams has done?

With the right tie, he says, a suit can go from the office to “Thursday night at Tutto Mare,” a restaurant in Fashion Island Newport Beach where a lot of singles gather, especially on Thursday nights.

But, he says, even more important than the fine Italian silk, wonderful weave and creative design is the tie’s exclusiveness.

“I don’t like to wear ties I see on everyone else,” Williams says.

To his friends, Frank Curry is the “king of ties.” The 51-year-old dentist from Newport Beach owns almost 300 ties. Curry says ties are one way to express himself while maintaining a professional demeanor.

“I’m a fairly conservative person. I don’t wear earrings,” he says. “With a unique tie, I can be bold and still be safe.”

Curry favors elegant ties with intricate woven patterns, although he does have a few wild ties such as his Valentine’s special with the big red lips.

“Many of these ties are works of art,” he says.

John Daniels, the 49-year-old property manager of South Coast Plaza, has had a longstanding rivalry over ties with his friend Gene Moriarty, general manager of the Segerstrom Center in Santa Ana. The two have had competitions to see who could wear the loudest tie. Daniels scored big with his target tie--a bright red tie printed with a dart board.

“I wear it when I want to out-loud anybody,” Daniels says.

Often he receives ties as gifts, many printed with pictures of classic cars--another of Daniels’ fetishes. One tie has a picture of a Harley-Davidson.

“My wife bought it for me, but it’s kind of hard to wear in the boardroom,” he says.

Tie lovers are particular about the quality of their ties.

Rushton Hays, the 62-year-old vice president and general manager of Surf & Sand Hotel in Laguna Beach, is known for sporting high-quality ties. He judges a tie by the way it feels and how smoothly it takes a knot.

“I’m not going to buy a cheap-looking tie,” he says.

Ken Young, a 23-year-old sales associate who works at the tie department in the Bullock’s Men’s Store in South Coast Plaza, says he just wants a tie that fits his personality. One of his prized possessions is a tie from the ‘70s that he rescued from his grandfather’s closet.

“If it’s wild and aggressive, it catches my eye,” Young says. “I stay away from traditional striped ties.”