When did it all start? I suppose it wasn’t so long ago. Mad Men started and I watched it from the get go. I had a wedding to go to, alone, and I was out shopping for something to wear. I remember that specifically being the point where it started.

I had always liked wearing a suit, but didn’t much wear them unless someone died or got married. A few interviews and big meetings at work, but that was it.

I was shopping and I picked out a vivid purplish pink paisley tie. I’d never owned a tie like that before. I paired it with a pinstriped DKNY shirt. A little expensive for me, but I tended to be a little blue collar.

I went to the wedding in my suit and tie. Decided at the last minute to add a vest. I stood a little straighter. I felt a little more in control. Confidence and strength through fashion? I liked it. That week I bought four more ties.

A few years later and I have around fifty of them. A closet full of dress shirts. Cufflinks, sweater vests, a new suit, collar stays and lovely colognes and so on.

I’ve been through this all before. Yes, Jack likes ties.

Enter my friends Sara and Zac and their 500 Hammers Project, which is a endeavor to “designed to highlight the ways in which small, useful objects shape – and are shaped by – our lives.”
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