Dimple Clip

Neckwear Notes: The Dimple Clip

June 29, 2011 By Harry Sheff Leave a Comment

Neckwear Notes is an ongoing series of conversations, notes and short features about the neckwear world and its personalities and brands. Neckwear Notes will tend to focus on the little guys, the new brands and the upstarts, because they tend to be the risk takers.

A good dimple under the knot of a tie is one of those small dying arts, the sort of thing that men don’t learn from their fathers anymore. Sure, you can figure out how to tie the tie yourself (YouTube helps), but it often takes personal guidance to perfect it. So many guys these days get the dimple off-center, so that it’s more of an S-curve, the dimple ending with one edge of the tie. Or there’s no dimple at all, just a smooth, convex roll of fabric under the knot.

This lack of attention to dimples apparently bothered Jim Mitchell, an investment advisor in Henderson, Nevada. He was frustrated that he couldn’t tie a perfect dimple every time. “I also noticed when I looked around my office, and even when I watched the news, that other guys had the same trouble,” he told me. “We use collar stays in our shirts to keep them looking pressed, why wouldn’t we use a similar product to keep our tie looking sharp?” So he and his brother, Anthony, created the Dimple Clip.

“We had our first prototype milled out of aluminum and it originally had a closed design that was intended to slide on the small end of the tie down the length into position,” Mitchell recalls. “We quickly learned that this was not the best solution. We decided to open the bottom, but we left the tabs that fold up from the bottom as we noticed it made sliding the dimple clip on the tie easier and it tends to grip the tie better.” The video below shows how it works.

There are other necktie accessories on the market; in fact, shortly after I spoke to Mitchell, another Henderson, Nevada company pitched me a product designed to keep your tie knot from slipping down, called the Tie Snug ($29.95), and Mitchell told me about another tie dimple aid called The Dimpler ($15.95). In fact, in his research, Mitchell found six patents for necktie dimple aids, dating back to 1939.

But Mitchell’s product is the simplest, and least expensive, currently on the market, and he says seeing other patents gave him confidence that there was a desire in the market for such a product. The Dimple Clip retails in a three-pack for $9.99.

Mitchell says he’s sold hundreds on his website, dimpleclip.com, and that he’s managed to get the product in a few Nevada stores and two in Australia. They want to sell a major department store, and maybe one day, says Mitchell, Dimple Clips will be sold with ties. The three-pack comes in a handsome box with a magnetic lid. Retailers will get a display box that holds 27 three-packs.

Last week in Neckwear Notes: General Knot & Co..

My title

"Where it all started"

For the chap who knows his seven fold from his five in hand, the pursuit of the perfect tie knot is akin to the Arthurian search for the Holy Grail – unrelenting, deeply personal and possibly done in order to outshine those around him if not to simply get him laid. Try as this sartorially inclined male might to twist and turn the silk of his ties, the perfect knot with the perfect dimple eludes him. Even if he does feel he’s achieved it, it is in fact little more than a mirage temporarily appearing before him in the mirror: its placement fleeting and within hours, if not moments, the perfect dimple will have succumbed to a combination of gravity, movement, and that bastard thing called reality and thus be perfect no more.

So what is the male for whom the dimple is desirous (and, to generalise, that should be all men who wear a tie and strive for perfection) to do?

Cheat.

dimple in tie

Yes, cheating isn’t nice. But let’s face facts: any guy will do it. We’ll lie, steal, beg but not borrow (we’re a possessive lot like that) in order to achieve our aims. And when it comes to achieving the perfect dimple on a tie knot there’s one trinket that I’ve recently had the pleasure of that makes the endeavour a whole lot easier.

The Dimple Clip is cheating. It’s the fake breasts of men’s neckwear. But it’s also the attainment of tie dimple perfection, no stitches or silicon required, so don’t judge me too harshly. Just like implants, the Dimple Clip hides beneath the surface, with only the results of its existence evident.

Here’s how it works:

a chap ties his favourite silk around his neck
he folds a dimple into the tie and inserts the M shaped Dimple Clip into the folds
he slides the Dimple Clip upwards into the knot, tightens and adjusts

Hey presto. Perfect dimple.

The Dimple Clip is simple, small and elegant. So simple and small that we’re including it in Fashionising.com’s 2011 Christmas gift guide. The perfect stocking filler and sure to please any chap who takes pleasure from his ties, the Dimple Clip is available from www.dimpleclip.com in packs of 1, 2 or 3. If you do venture over to the site please overlook its design: the product is way better than site’s layout implies.

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