We might not see this shade on Wall Street bankers anytime soon, but we could picture it on the hipster urban-techie set.
(Credit: Thomas Pink)Gadgetized clothing isn't the newest thing on the catwalk anymore. We've seen jackets and hats with built-in MP3 players and Bluetooth speakers, for example, as well as a coat with pockets for 12 (count 'em, 12) of your favorite tech toys.
But we're pretty sure we've never seen a tech-inspired hot-purple necktie before.
Lucky for you, Thomas Pink's silk woven Commuter Tie--which doubles as a music player storage device--comes in other colors too, including blue, green, orange, and red, as well as a more subdued gray for the MP3-toting investment bankers out there.
The tie accommodates the new iPod Nano and other smaller music players. Part of the U.K. shirtmaker's autumn/winter line, the tie was previously only available as a limited edition, but now is tying one on (see what I did there?) and selling more broadly for a you'd-better-really-love-music price of $90.
As a kind of fun little gimmick, the Thomas Pink site lists a series of Commuter Tie-worthy music tracks for trips to and from the office. "To" examples: Work To Do (Average White Band); Money For Nothing (Dire Straits); Big Time (Peter Gabriel). "From" examples: Friday I'm In Love (The Cure); Rush Hour Soul (Supergrass); Drive My Car (The Beatles). Unfortunately, free labor-related MP3s are not part of the deal.
You may not know it, but deep within the ivory towers of hospitals a debate is raging over the future of the doctor's necktie. One company has turned the debate into an opportunity with a tie whose stain-resistant coating actually thwarts microbes.
Safety Ties come in various patterns, including this brick red/maroon style with silver/gray stripes.
(Credit: SafetySmart)Much evidence has emerged in recent years that doctors wearing ties might actually cause as much harm to patients as doctors who don't wash their hands. In one 2004 study of 42 doctors and medical staffers at the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens, almost 50 percent of the neckties were host to bacteria that can cause pneumonia, blood infections, and more.
I'm no squirmy person, but that's just gross.
In 2006, the British Medical Association suggested that medical personnel no longer wear "functionless" items such as neckties that carry "superbugs."
And this summer, the American Medical Association considered Resolution 720, which pushed for a dress code that addresses the issue of neckties, long sleeves, and other clothing items and accessories "implicated in the spread of infections in hospitals." Implicated! This has gotten serious, folks. (A committee wants more evidence before bringing the resolution to a vote.)
But because many doctors are publicly pushing for the preservation of the necktie, which is the cred equivalent of gold grills for rappers like Flava Flav, April Strider of SafeSmart in Florida has put her money on a compromise: the high-tech, antimicrobial tie.
Strider tells the Wall Street Journal that the coating "repels bacterial contamination." She even designed the ties with a graphic print of the H1N1 influenza strand, among other "doctor themes," a lovely twist of irony as she manages to put germs on her germ-free ties. Strider's already got a major client in Wilson Memorial Hospital, near Dayton, Ohio, where some docs are wearing polo shirts but others prefer to stick with ties.
A big "oh well" to all the (probably younger) doctors hoping to do away with the necktie altogether. Hey, you could always try Portland, land of the laid-back workplace. Of course, then you'd have to grow a beard, which is a bit like farming your own colony of happy bacteria. At least that H1N1 tie is currently on sale, marked down from $44.95 to $29.95.
(Credit:
Supermarket)
The music may be horrible, but if you rub a tape head over these ties you can actually hear jumbled sound collages recorded from the NYC metro system. This is possible because the ties are 50 percent audio cassette tape.
If you have $90 to spend on one of the ties, and you are willing to sacrifice an old Walkman for the project, you can make this a fixture of your formal wardrobe. Of course, walking around with a broken Walkman asking every one to rub you with it is not recommended.
This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.
The USB-powered fan necktie, as depicted on the Japanese Web site selling it.
It's no surprise that the first necktie to come with a USB-powered fan built into the knot comes from Japan. Having lived in Tokyo for nearly three years, I can confirm that which you already know: Japan is technology heaven.
It's where old tech hopes to go when it dies so it can be resuscitated by an Atari 2600 fetishist, and it's where new tech hopes to be born. It's one of the few countries in the world where bleeding-edge cell phones shaped like pens and that, in fact, are pens can enjoy a limited if well-lit 15 seconds of fame.
... Read more
- prev
- 1
- next
