Its October! One of my favourite months of the year. The cool autumnal (or fall) evenings allow us to bring our A/W wardrobe and accessories out of hibernation!

I love my accessories as you already know. I recently discovered a great brand who specialise in dapper accessories such as knitted bowties and ties and lapel pins theres even accessories for your pets! They are Wool & Water from the Netherlands.  From the first moment I discovered these wonderfully crafted bowties, I wanted one. What Fashionable Frank wants, he usually gets. In this case by winning a competition on National BowTie Day on Twitter! (Thanks again Alice for choosing me as the winner!). After much debate on what bow tie to choose as my prize (hotly contested between The Ashford and The Fitzgerald.) I settled on The Ashford! A superb piece of craftsmanship I think you will agree. As part of the prize I won a mini Bowtie for a pet or a teddy bear – such a great idea I think!

Each Bow Tie has its own origin story on why the name was chosen. I found this fascinating! The Fitzgerald Bow Tie has a great story – give it a read! It adds character to pieces already oozing personality! My choice of Bow Tie, The Ashford, was named after a young 9 year old novelist (yeah I know, NINE YEAR OLD?!) by the name of Daisy Ashford! She wrote the book The Young Visitors.

THE ASHFORD BOWTIE

I have to state this – these are incredibly brilliant quality! I can only imagine the skill set required to knit one of these Bow Ties! Its simply breathtaking craftsmanship! And, no, its not because I won one. They are a beautiful sight to behold! I love the colour scheme on The Ashford! It looks fantastic! However, as Virtual Reality Blogging isn’t commercially viable just let I’ll just have to let the pictures do the talking!

The Promotional Material which accompanied the delivery of the prize is truly inspired I think. This illustrates how these Bow Ties are to be worn. Your pets will be Photobombing in style from now on!

FASHIONABLE FRANK & THE ASHFORD BOWTIE

To illustrate my point on how much I love The Ashford Bow Tie I decided to do what I do best, include it in some fashionable outfits! I consider this Bow Tie to have a quirky element to it which allows it transcend any outfit – casual to dapper, with relative ease. Some pictures to emphasise my argument?

THE ASHFORD BOWTIE & A DENIM JACKET

This is an outfit I discovered as I was messing around in River Island recently. My outfit on the day consisted of everything except the Denim Jacket. A nice smart casual look for some Saturday shopping! When I tried on the Denim Jacket (another sale buy for Fashionable Frank! €65 RRP reduced to €30! Bag yourself a bargain with my sale tips here!) I was blown away by how well it looked. This outfit should not really work but I believe it is the colour pop of The Ashford Bow Tie which ties it altogether! I think it looks great (no bias on my behalf!) AND gives you another outfit option to consider!

THE ASHFORD BOW TIE & THE TAN OVERCOAT

The Tan Overcoat is everywhere this season so there is a strong possibility  you have purchased one or are considering purchasing one. Still need some convincing? Check out my outerwear guide here! This outfit provides some smarter outfit inspiration for you guys! The Ashford looks great again here too I think you will agree. Differentiate yourself from the crowd by wearing a waistcoat and bow tie. As you can see they look great together!

THE ASHFORD BOW TIE & A WAISTCOAT

This outfit represents the perfect use for The Ashford Bow Tie in my opinion! The bow tie is a piece which only James Bond seems to make proper use of! Introduce a bow tie into  your smart casual outfits for injection of old school style! It will add so much character, personality and interest to your outfit you will be thrilled with the compliments coming your way!

THE ASHFORD BOW TIE & A BLAZER

The most obvious piece for any bow tie is a blazer! These two go together like Laurel & Hardy……or Wool & Water! I recommend playing around with your style. The Ashford as we have seen looks great with every outfit. If it will work with a Denim Jacket then it will certainly work well with a Blazer. My thinking here was to contrast! Colour flow is incredibly important when building your outfits. The Dark Green Mango Man (great brand by the way. Definitely worth checking out!) keeps the focal point of the outfit on The Ashford Bow Tie. The rest of the outfit consists of the “new neutrals” colour palette. What are the “new neutrals”? Guess what??………..I have a blog post on how to wear them here. Thanks Frank – your welcome!

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. Check out the Wool & Water website for more information and pricing. The Bow Ties are great quality in my opinion! I hope the outfits on show provided some inspiration for you in your future fashion endeavours!

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I’ve been Fashionable Frank and you have been Fantastic!

Thanks for reading!

STAY STYLISH!