PO Box 7230
Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067
T (858) 756-4088
Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067
T (858) 756-4088
The Steve Maloney Bronze Tie Collection
Preview and Artist Reception at The Mark Hotel 77th and Madison Avenue, New York City
May 12, 2010
May 12, 2010
The Steve Maloney
Bronze Tie Collection
Artist Statement:
Love them, loathe them, sling them in the closet - there's no escaping neckties. Personally, I love them. I have fun expressing my style by matching really colorful neckties with great shirts. My new sculptural series, The Steve Maloney Bronze Tie Collection, is as much as an homage to the years I spent in the men's fashion industry as to honor the enduring beauty of the timeless fashion accessory.
Growing up in the Midwest, I spent school vacations and holidays in my family's department store selling men's clothing and furnishings. The teenage experience eventually inspired me to launch my own traditional men's clothing store at the corner of South Street and the Burdick Mall in Downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan. I recall sidewalks crowded with men in neckties, whose deceptive simplicity revealed so much about their wearers. Colors, patterns, even textures exposed the men as serious, important, creative, humorous or powerful by turns - or, sometimes, all at once.
Back in the day, the gentlemen of Kalamazoo with an eye for upscale threads would travel two hours by train to downtown Chicago to shop at Brooks Brothers, Saks Fifth Avenue and Abercrombie & Fitch. That was my competition. In my store, I carried a great stock of domestic and imported ties branded with my own label. This was around the time Ralph Lauren made a splash with bold, 4-inch wide ties with $20 price tags. I was fascinated with his unique patterns and textures and quickly added them to my inventory. They sold like hot cakes. I still cherish a tie from the designer's early Polo collection bearing the Steven Maloney label that I stashed away from the late '60s.
Upon self-exploration as an artist, I believed that a bronze sculpture of a tie would provide me with an alternative canvas to explore form, motion, and color. The fact that neckties are so embedded in our culture, so chock full of historical content, and so long on possibility helps establish a familiar connection between the artist and the viewer.
Having previously worked in bronze, I realized that the perfect patina of the medium could translate as beautiful as silk. As many of my men's store customers used to say: "I can't decide, I like them all; I'll take one of each, please!"
Bronze Tie Collection
Artist Statement:
Love them, loathe them, sling them in the closet - there's no escaping neckties. Personally, I love them. I have fun expressing my style by matching really colorful neckties with great shirts. My new sculptural series, The Steve Maloney Bronze Tie Collection, is as much as an homage to the years I spent in the men's fashion industry as to honor the enduring beauty of the timeless fashion accessory.
Growing up in the Midwest, I spent school vacations and holidays in my family's department store selling men's clothing and furnishings. The teenage experience eventually inspired me to launch my own traditional men's clothing store at the corner of South Street and the Burdick Mall in Downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan. I recall sidewalks crowded with men in neckties, whose deceptive simplicity revealed so much about their wearers. Colors, patterns, even textures exposed the men as serious, important, creative, humorous or powerful by turns - or, sometimes, all at once.
Back in the day, the gentlemen of Kalamazoo with an eye for upscale threads would travel two hours by train to downtown Chicago to shop at Brooks Brothers, Saks Fifth Avenue and Abercrombie & Fitch. That was my competition. In my store, I carried a great stock of domestic and imported ties branded with my own label. This was around the time Ralph Lauren made a splash with bold, 4-inch wide ties with $20 price tags. I was fascinated with his unique patterns and textures and quickly added them to my inventory. They sold like hot cakes. I still cherish a tie from the designer's early Polo collection bearing the Steven Maloney label that I stashed away from the late '60s.
Upon self-exploration as an artist, I believed that a bronze sculpture of a tie would provide me with an alternative canvas to explore form, motion, and color. The fact that neckties are so embedded in our culture, so chock full of historical content, and so long on possibility helps establish a familiar connection between the artist and the viewer.
Having previously worked in bronze, I realized that the perfect patina of the medium could translate as beautiful as silk. As many of my men's store customers used to say: "I can't decide, I like them all; I'll take one of each, please!"