Neckwear Notes: Glendon Lambert

After the New York trade shows in July, I had two colleagues ask me if I’d seen the neckwear brand Glendon Lambert. I didn’t make it to Liberty, so I hadn’t had the pleasure, but when I checked out the look book online, I loved what I saw: narrow pinwale corduroy ties in lots of colors, a highly textured horizontal stripe made from lines of polyamide knots, bright cotton oxfords and yarn-died and embroidered linens. Few brands this young pack this much fun and innovation into a collection.

Glendon Breismeister (pictured above), the designer behind Glendon Lambert, is a Connecticut native living in Brooklyn. He started making ties a few years ago as a creative outlet—his career in the wine and spirits business wasn’t satisfying his creative tendencies—and he’s managed to turn it into a small but growing brand.

I recently met Breismeister and his wife Lauren at the Montauk Club, an old private club in Brooklyn near Prospect Park. The Montauk Club was where the Corduroy Club once held its annual meetings ( I attended one in 2007), and it also happened to be where the Breismeisters got married last year.

Oddly fitting then that it was a quest for a perfect corduroy tie that got him into this business. “I had bought other corduroy ties and I didn’t like the way the knot sat or how they were cut on the bias,” Breismeister told me. “I wanted a fine-wale cord and a slim width that would allow for a good knot. I went through a number of iterations to find the right cord. Because of the very nature of cord—velvet that burrs and fades with age—I wanted to present it in a casual way that would work with the inherent character of the fabric as it aged.”

The result is a two-inch square bottom tie with horizontal wales ($85 retail), in six colors.

But the showstopper in this collection is clearly the tie Breismeister calls Birds-on-a-Wire. While all his ties are very tactile, Birds-on-a-Wire is uncommonly so. It’s made from English silk that has rows of rough polyamide lines with a pattern of seemingly random knots. When I first saw pictures of the tie, I thought it was a print, and I loved it. When I discovered that it’s actually real fabric woven and knotted into the silk, I couldn’t believe it. Breismeister says it was inspired by—obviously—birds sitting on wires, but also shoes dangling from wires by their laces.

Birds-on-a-Wire currently comes in six shades of blues, reds and gray. It’s available in two-inch-wide four-in-hand style ($120 retail) and a bat wing bow tie ($115).

Another textured tie is the raw Italian linen with embroidered chains. This one was inspired by a wrought iron gate near the Breismeisters’ apartment in Brooklyn. These 2.75-inch ties retail for $90; diamond point bow ties are $85. It’s also offered in a pocket square for $45.

Glendon Lambert is in a number of specialty stores, including Modern Anthology, Bird and The Brooklyn Circus (all in Brooklyn) and Wingtip in San Francisco.

“Ouigi [Theodore] and his partner Gabe Garcia were early supporters of my brand, carrying my ties in both Brooklyn Circus locations (SF and NY),” Breismeister told me. “Ouigi invited me to be a part of Freedom Hall at the new Liberty Fair this year, which was an incredible invitation to receive given the quality of the other brands he chose to be a part of it.”

In general, the Glendon Lambert ties retail for between $75 and $100, with the higher-end exceptions being the Italian wool and Birds-on-a-Wire. Most of the neckwear fabrics are also used in pocket squares, which range from $32 to $40.

Glendon Lambert is exhibiting at Liberty in Las Vegas this week.