Tie-ing the Knot

It all began with my father’s idea to have a suit custom made for the wedding. He scheduled an appointment on a weeknight at 5:15 so I could accompany him to the custom clothier down the street from my office. I distinctly remember my heels tapping against pavement as I walked north up LaSalle Street to Balani Custom.

After being swallowed up by the massive lobby at 10 South LaSalle, the intimately sized Balani Custom was a welcome surprise. I was greeted by a comfortable seating area with plump leather couches, a beautiful granite counter at which the surprisingly young clothier conducts his business, and—in the center of all of this--a big round table boasting rows and rows of ties.

If you know me very well at all (which most of you probably do at this point, as I gather my readership hasn’t reached very far beyond my inner circle…yet), you know that when I was a girl, my father let me select his ties before he left for work in the big city. He would lay out three or four choices on my parents’ bed and I would hold them up against his suit, meticulously selecting the best match.

I carried something of this experience with me into adult life, and I am now and forever desperately in love with ties. I love the patterns and the infinite variations of color and texture. I pride myself on being able to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to ties, and on being able to select the perfect tie for any outfit.

But I’m biased. And I digress.

You see, the big round table won me over with its rows and rows of ties lined up like spokes in a bicycle wheel. I mentally added Balani Custom to my list of happy places (which includes, but is not limited to: Whole Foods, Nordstrom Rack, The Zodiac Room and Myron and Phil’s).

My father and I sat at the counter with Joe (the clothier), poring over his books of fabric swatches. We picked out a gorgeous midnight navy fabric with a subtle ivory stripe. The end result was fantastic. Needless to say, my fiancé and I were walking back through the door a few weeks later.

I think the best part about bringing my fiancé to Balani for his wedding suit is the fact that he actually loved the experience. You see, he’s the kind of guy that knows quality clothing when he sees it, but is perfectly content to sit back and allow someone else to select said clothing for him. This is, of course, an arrangement I find perfectly gratifying. So when I saw my beloved actively flipping through fabric swatches with me, and yucking it up with Joe, I couldn’t have been caught more off guard. I had figured I would have to put up with the requisite signals--you know the ones--a sudden widening of the eyes when the salesperson turns his back, followed by a gentle coaxing nudge in the direction of the exit as if to say “We can run now, right now! While he’s looking away!”

In the end, my fiancé found a fabric that he really loves. A deep dark charcoal sharkskin weave that absolutely sings against his light brown hair and the monogrammed ivory French-cuff shirt we had made to match my wedding dress. When I finally had the chance to see him in his perfectly fitted custom suit and dress shirt, I couldn’t have felt more impressed. My fiancé? He’s one tall drink of water, and he looks damn fine in his deep dark charcoal wedding suit.

I saw him standing there, in front of the big mirror at Balani, with Joe fretting over tiny alterations. And it was easy to imagine him waiting at the end of an aisle. It was easy to see him weaving through tables topped with gorgeous silk linens and explosive floral arrangements with his arm around my waist. So I just looked, and allowed myself to enjoy looking. And I thought: lucky me.

Soon we will drive up North to visit a shop that--my father claims--carries the best ties you can find. And I am sure I will walk around the shop with a hawk eye, picking up a tie here and there and holding it up to my fiance’s neck. And I will cock my head to one side, examining the pattern meticulously, and remember being a girl.