The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 19

TV LISTIIIGS CLASSIFIEDS COHICS Section asmon April 21,1983 The identity crisis of the bow-tie fe tm i i PI pi pm ww mMMiMMMi um -n guys By MARY GOTTSCHALK 1W3 Kitoht-RkMw NawsMPWi REGISTER PHOTO BV LARRY MAY 5 ifr 1 ftp, mma mthmt sapug 05 customer wouldn't wear Ji't 1 Willis 'Aii' i ...1 1 -i. 5 rt A sweetheart coffee deal Please allow me to correct an oversight. Recently, I was writing about coffee-pricing practices in Iowa restaurants and said the state's cheapest cup of coffee is the one going for a nickel at Colleen's cafe on the main drag of New Sharon. "That is not the only place in Iowa where they sell coffee for a nickel a cup," says the note I received from Ken Athey of Northwood. "Me and my wife Rhonda own a restaurant.

The previous owners had it at a nickel and when my wife took over a couple of years ago, it's stayed the same." To make amends, this morning, the first 200 of those nickel cups at Rhonda's Corner Post in Northwood, located north of Mason City, are on the Iowa Boy. The check is in the mail. "Well, aren't you a sweetheart!" said Rhonda when I called her Wednesday to cut the deal. Gosh. Me? LET'S ALL KISS THE BRIDE, but first let me quote from a column I wrote last October about Susan Bray, former WHO radio talk show host now putting Philadelphia on its ear: "Bray lives with her two children in a suburb.

A self-described 'great she said she often debates wit herself about whether she should marry again. 'A lot of times I'll think I really don't need all she said, but then I'll have a bottle of wine, get a little silly and say, oh, hell, I really do want to get This week, my mail includes a nicely done invitation from Bray and Edward Knox DeLong II saying, "We will be delighted if you can join us to share in the celebration of our marriage Saturday, April 30." BOOM TIME IN CORYDON: "We need anothe dozen or so cannons down here by August 10," says Hugh Doty, newspaperman in that town. "Would think that a cannoneer would jump at the chance to perform with a real live symphony, wouldn't you?" The Des Moines Symphony, going on the road to make music on the square in Corydon, is doing the 1812 Overture, obviously. THE WANDERING IOWAN: Su-persalesman Dick Johnson of Fort Dodge was telling me he's getting ready to spend some time in Canada conducting training sessions for the company that employs him. Oh, going to any of the fun places up there? "They're all fun once I get there," he said.

ORIENTAL WISDOM: "Weather forecasting has been speeded up, but it's still several hours behind arthritis." So says Madalyn Capps, of Orient, la. WILL IT NEVER END? The city council in Orchard has authorized purchasing rock "to fill chuckholes." HOWDY NEIGHBOR: Mark Wampler, who keeps his eyes peeled for me as he roams Iowa, wonders what South Dakota folks must think as they approach our state line at a point near Gitchie Manitou State Park in our extreme northwest corner. The accompanying photo shows the first signs of Iowa those Dakoters would see. The bottom sign is actually intended to warn drivers away from a soft dirt lane just beyond the signpost, not to warn them away from the state as a whole, said Wampler, "but I knew you'd enjoy seeing this." You all can enjoy it with me. Chuck OffenbuTger I lark Gable was not looking jfor a bow tie when he walked up to the sales clerk in "The Hucksters" and said, "Give me a sincere tie.

I'm on my (way to a very important meeting in my life." Bow ties are seldom, if ever, thought of as sincere. Think of a bow tie and who comes to mind? Comedians like Red Skelton, Soupy Sales, Pinkie Lee and Dick Martin, television game-show hosts such as Garry "I've Got a Secret" Moore and Bud "Beat the Clock" Collier, and TV personalities on the "Today" show, Gene Shalit and before him Dave Garroway. But for every clown in a butterfly bow, there is what Gerald Anderson calls "the true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool bow-tie man." As executive director of the Neckwear Association of America, Anderson has noticed a definite growth in the bow-tie business in the past year, although he points out "it is still a relatively low percentage of the overall tie business, under 10 percent." Industry insiders put annual neckwear sales by more than 300 U.S. manufacturers at $800 million, including exports. Bow ties fall into two basic categories butterflies and straight.

The butterflies can be wide and floppy or simply fat. The straight bows tend to be narrow and more on the stiff side. Whether it's butterfly or straight, the true-blues will wear nothing else, Anderson says. "They usually have a big wardrobe of bows. They tend to be academics and professionals in the investment community, lawyers and doctors.

It's a steady market." A secondary market, Anderson says, is "the fashion-conscious younger man between 20 and 25. He either knows how to tie a bow tie or will take the time to learn and appreciates the subtle distinctions between the self-tie and the clip-on." It goes without saying, but Anderson does anyway: "Any true-blue bow-tie customer wouldn't wear a clip-on." One true-blue is Dr. Emmet Moyers, obstetrician and gynecologist at Sunnyvale, Medical Clinic. "I've been wearing them for more than 30 years. I started wearing them as a freshman in college when I spent all my time in the lab.

Long ties would get caught in the Bunsen burner, so I switched to bow ties." There are some people who don't like bow ties, Moyers says. "My wile cringes when she sees me wearing one. She doesn't think they're becoming." Moyers never has considered wearing clip-on or pre-tied bows. "I tie them myself and have right from the start. It was my mother who taught me how to tie them," he says.

Don Thackery of the Menlo-Atherton Board of Realtors is another true-blue who has been wearing bow ties exclusively for 20 years. "I find them easy, comfortable and not hot in the summer." The pantheon of famous true-blues includes the likes of Archibald Cox, Senator Daniel Moynihan and Winston Churchill. Moynihan favors polka dots, and has worn his bows at the United Nations and in the Senate. Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor and a Harvard Law School professor, wears stripes as well as patterns but draws the line on where he will wear bow ties. In all those all-important Watergate court appearances Cox opted for a traditional straight tie.

Cox is not alone in considering bow ties inappropriate in serious situations. In his best seller, "Dress for Success," author John T. Molloy comes down hard on bow ties for business. "The only possible use comes if you are too powerful a personality, in which case they can soften your image. But otherwise you will not be thought responsible if you wear a bow tie.

Most people will not trust you with anything important. The number of people who will trust you at all, with anything, will be cut in half. In general, I have found that people believe a man in a bow tie will steal." Despite Molloy's harsh words, the bow tie is very much part of today's fashion scene. Chip Tolbert, fashion director of the Men's Fashion Association of America, says they are making a comeback. He credits the "Brideshead Revisited" television series and the movie "Chariots of Fire" with the revival.

"They wore a lot of them in those films, and in the men's fashion industry it takes a little while (to catch on)." spring are pleated and many of them held up by suspenders. Gene Pressman and Lance Karesh, designers for Basco, like gray linen trousers with a slightly tapered leg. Ditto the double pleats for Allan Flusser, British Khaki, Barry I. Bricken and others. Browns of London steps back in time to offer white jeans with a button fly.

Suits. Allan Flusser continues his love of the 1930s and Saville Row tailoring in his impeccable blue seersucker, double-breasted suits. "It's very soft, very old world," he observed. "In the '60s and 70s, menswear was European-inspired. In the '80's, it's American-and English-inspired." Accessories.

Besides brightly colored shoes, look for colored skin belts with stunning sterling silver abstract buckles. In hats, fedoras have lost none of their appeal. Add panamas to the category for quick dash. Designer Marsha Aikens for Makins hats offers these plus a "whole group of old-time boaters with wide-striped ribbons." Menswear is bright and bold for spring 1983 By MARY MARTIN NIEPOLD in Knight Ntwuxptn NEW YORK, N.Y. Pastel kid shoes, bright red suede shirts and bold geometric sweaters aren't just for women anymore.

If top menswear designers have their way, these fashions dubbed "American dash" will be seen on American men this spring, from backyards to boardrooms. For spring '83, the use of bright color is one of the most prominent suggestions by designers. Color is spotted in such predictable places as sportswear. Gianfranco Ruffinl, for instance, updates a camp shirt by offering it in a bold red-and-white striped pattern; the twist is that the stripes are very wide on one side of the shirt and very narrow on the other. "The biggest news is color, to break out in a new color," said award-winning designer Jeffrey Banks.

"The second story is mixing patterns. For instance, (a man) could try a cotton plaid worsted suit. Then, he could wear it with a multi-striped shirt." Finishing the look, Banks held up a gray club tie with MB I'm'' Shirts. Color and innovation are commonplace in this category, a place where designers like to experiment. Robert Stock makes a pink tuxedo shirt with a white pleated bib front.

Stock also uses bright madras in shirts. Bright is the word for British Khaki's multicolored, striped, short-sleeve shirts. Pinky Diane like gray, pink, yellow and blue for their silk shirts with white bib fronts and tab collars; they prefer abstract printed Hawaiian shirts in black and white silk. Sportswear. In leisure dressing, men always have shown more fashion verve.

Color, again, shows up here. Adding to his reputation as a sweater designer, Bill Ditfort adds shorts, outer shirts and slacks, all in brick red and gray suede. Facconable of France adds traffic-light brilliance to vertically striped cotton windbreakers in crimson, yellow or green. Morgan Ayres takes a linen sweatshirt and trims it with strips of suede. Slacks.

As in the fall, many slacks this pink and yellow sailboat motifs. "If there's one thing I'd tell men," Banks concluded of his instantly created, triple-patterned "traditional" look, "it would be to experiment and not to be afraid of color or pattern." Timidity is not one of the things designers are noted for this spring. Some of the looks to be found in men's departments: Shoes. Docksiders aren't new, but look for electric colors. Gil Truedsson's Tiger of Sweden label turns them out in red and green with white tassels, while Cole-Hahn designs them in pink, baby blue or beige.

Sweaters. No longer are hot months an excuse for not wearing sweaters. In the last few years, there's been an avalanche of cotton sweaters, making them nearly as popular as knit polo shirts. Name a color, texture, pattern or design twist, and somebody out there has it knitted in a man's cotton sweater. Sweater vests continue to be popular, and argyles are still a favored design motif.

A warning sign.