[Pages S2426-S2427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

RECOGNIZING VERMONT'S BEAU TIES LTD.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it is not often that I say the words
``Vermont'' and ``bow tie'' in the same sentence, except, of course,
when discussing the famed Beau Ties Ltd. of Vermont. Beau Ties,
Vermont's sole bow tie manufacturer, got its start as a mom-and-pop
operation more than 25 years ago and maintains that ethos. They are an
amazing example of the many small businesses that are the heart and
soul of Vermont.
Beau Ties was started in 1993 by bow tie aficionado Bill Kenerson and
his wife Deborah Venman. They ran the company out of their home and
sold their bow ties through the mail. Over the years, the company has
grown to employ 30 Vermonters and now has its own manufacturing
facility in Middlebury. They sell hundreds of different bow ties, and
their selection is constantly changing to keep customers coming back.
Though they are no longer at the helm, Bill and Deborah's desire to
keep the company in Vermont has been honored. In fact, the company has
never left the facility that it moved into in 1999, and many of its
employees have been with Beau Ties for over 20 years.
Among its clientele, Beau Ties Ltd. can count the late Orville
Redenbacher and Bill Nye. The company has also cut cloth for the Obama
White House and is the official tiemaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives and the Vermont Statehouse. I have also sported Beau
Ties before: I wore one of their bow ties to the investiture of Judge
Geoffrey Crawford, now chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the
District of Vermont.
I am proud to recognize the achievements and devoted following that
Beau Ties Ltd. has accumulated over its nearly three decades in
business. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a
``Seven Days'' article titled, ``Middlebury's Beau Ties Collars the
Market on Dapper Neckwear.'' It tells the story of Beau Ties Ltd., from
its humble beginnings to now and of its importance to Vermont's economy
and its many satisfied customers, myself included.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S2427]]

Seven Days

[March 6, 2019]

Middlebury's Beau Ties Collars the Market on Dapper Neckwear

Anyone who wears a bow tie is making a statement. It can be
``I'm conservative,'' ``I'm in the wedding party,'' ``I'll be
your server this evening,'' or ``I'm intelligent and
dexterous enough to knot my own bow tie.'' Regardless of the
message, bow ties get noticed, as do the people who sport
them.
Not everyone can pull one off--or tie one on. Those who
wear bow ties are a rarefied set. And for many bow tie
enthusiasts around the country, their bow tie mecca is Beau
Ties Ltd of Vermont: a modern, one-story manufacturing
facility in a Middlebury industrial park. There, bow tie
aficionados are occasionally seen getting their pictures
taken in front of the giant polka-dotted bow tie out front.
Never heard of Beau Ties? That's unsurprising in Vermont,
where few people routinely wear ties of any kind. According
to Elizabeth Smith, copresident and CEO of Beau Ties, most of
the company's clients live out of state and buy their
products online or through their catalogs.
But this predominantly retail business, now in its 26th
year, boasts an impressive clientele of famous bow tie-
wearing blokes: the late popcorn entrepreneur Orville
Redenbacher, science educator Bill Nye ``The Science Guy''
and retired ``CBS News Sunday Morning'' host Charles Osgood,
who has his own signature line of bow ties with the company.
Beau Ties has also produced ties for the Obama White House,
Tiffany & Co., PBS, and countless colleges, prep schools and
fraternal organizations. It's also the official tie maker for
the U.S. House of Representatives and the Vermont Statehouse.
And its private-label clients include fine menswear retailers
Ben Silver, Barneys New York and Brooks Brothers.
On a reporter's recent tour of the facility, Smith and
fellow copresident Cy Day Tall rarely referred to their
clientele as ``customers.'' Instead, they were ``our guys''
or ``our fellas.'' While the bow tie market isn't huge, or
exclusively male, the people who purchase their bow ties,
neckties and other fashion accessories--cummerbunds,
cufflinks, suspenders, cravats, pocket squares--tend to
return time and again. Often they'll phone the company and
ask to speak to a specific employee who helped them in the
past.
``In our mind, we're a family business,'' explained Smith,
who splits management duties with Tall. Smith handles
customer service and sales, while Tall is the chief marketing
officer and ``wordsmith'' of the catalog, the mainstay of
their retail business.
Beau Ties' familial feel extends to its staff, too. Of the
30 employees, several are mother-daughter or grandparent-
grandchild pairs. Many, including Smith, have been with Beau
Ties 20 years or more. All but three are women. The company
also hires no seasonal help, Smith noted, so that everyone
can earn a decent wage with benefits.
Notwithstanding its reputation for formal attire, Beau Ties
is actually a casual and relaxed workplace, where several
seamstresses were listening to music on headphones and joking
among themselves while sewing. Zooey, a small black pug, and
Margy, an energetic Welsh corgi, enthusiastically greeted a
visiting reporter.
Beau Ties was founded in 1993 by Bill Kenerson and his
wife, Deborah Venman. Kenerson, a native of New Haven, Conn.,
and a Marine Corps veteran who attended Yale University,
moved to Vermont in 1978 to buy the Killington Country
Resort. A year later he took a job at Simmonds Precision
Products in Vergennes, where he worked until 1990. In 1991,
then-governor Richard Snelling tapped him to serve as
commissioner of economic development.
Though Kenerson had a strong business background, he had no
training in men's apparel, Smith said. But he was a dyed-in-
the-wool bow tie aficionado who inherited many of his
favorites from his father and grandfather. Discouraged by the
dearth of quality ties he liked, he and Venman launched their
own bow tie business in the spring of 1993.
Two months later, they hired Vivian LaFave, a New Haven
seamstress, who set up their shop in her basement and began
cutting and sewing ties from fabrics Kenerson and Venman
purchased in New York City's garment district. LaFave is
still with the company and considered the grand dame of
the sewing floor.
Kenerson and Venman began by marketing just eight bow ties
via a one-page circular, which they mailed to 5,000 people;
it eventually evolved into a catalog. The company also
advertised in periodicals that Kenerson assumed would appeal
to fellow bow tie wearers, such as Smithsonian magazine and
the New Yorker.
Smith remembers the surge of business that occurred the day
after Kenerson ran an ad on page two of the Wall Street
Journal in the late 1990s. ``We couldn't answer the phone
fast enough,'' she recalled.
For several years, Kenerson and Venman ran the business out
of their home, said Smith. However, the company quickly
outgrew that space.
``Deb had to get up and get dressed every morning because
we had to go through their bedroom just to get to our
offices,'' she noted. In November 1999, Beau Ties moved into
its current building. Wanting to maintain the company's homey
feel, Kenerson had it outfitted with a large kitchen, an
outdoor deck, a grill and even a dog run.
Soon, the company was producing 36- to 48-page catalogs
that featured nearly two dozen new ties per month, as well as
some ancillary products. The company's website also lists
another 500 to 600 bow ties, which come as pre-tied, clip-on
or ``freestyle,'' that is, DIY knots.
Basically, the styles fall into two categories, Smith said:
the subdued patterns for ``the conservative fellows'' and the
loud, bold and bright colors for the more flamboyant
dressers. On the day of Seven Days' visit, seamstresses were
sewing plenty of green Celtic themes (for St. Patrick's Day),
hearts (for Valentine's Day), and purple, green and gold
masks (for Mardi Gras). Mostly, the fabrics come from China,
Italy and the UK, Smith said.
It's worth noting that the ``Ltd'' in the company name
isn't an aesthetic flourish but reflects the time-sensitive
availability of its products.
``Bill and Deb's concept was to be limited, so that people
come back,'' Smith explained. ``I have to have something
[new] to entice them to buy from me every month.''
Beau Ties continued to grow throughout the 2000s. By
September 2012, however, Kenerson, who was facing significant
health challenges, sold the company to its current owners:
David Kramer, who lives in New York State, and David Mutter,
in California. Though other buyers approached him, Smith
said, Kenerson insisted on finding people who would keep the
company in Vermont and run it the same way he and his wife
had.
``This was Bill's baby,'' Smith added. ``Every single
person who worked here was completely valuable to him.'' As
she noted, Kenerson opened every piece of mail that came in
and usually answered customers himself. A mere two months
after the sale, the ``Beau'' of Beau Ties died at the age of
81.
Though one might assume that the typical Beau Ties customer
is a stodgy, Barry Goldwater-era conservative, Smith said
that members of the younger generation also want to fashion
one on.
Representative of the new demographic is 21-year-old Andrew
Brown of Bristol, who's been working at Beau Ties since he
was 17. His grandmother, Barb, works there, too. The younger
Brown, a dapper youth who sports a bow tie daily, is now the
company's social media manager.
``The bow tie wearer is the musician. He's the architect.
He's the fella who works in a museum,'' Smith said. ``He's
the attorney and the judge. He's the young guy who wants to
wear something on `bow tie Friday.' He's the preppy kid who
wants something to wear to the yacht club.''
Doctors and other health care professionals tend to prefer
bow ties, too. Why? The short ties don't drape onto their
patients and spread germs, Smith explained. Pediatricians
like them because babies and toddlers can't grab them. In
fact, Burlington pediatrician Joe Hagan belongs to a
professional group of docs from around the country called the
Pediatric Travel Club, which gets its neckwear from Beau
Ties.
Tall, who names all the ties and writes the product
descriptions, said that, when Beau Ties first started, there
were maybe five other bow tie manufacturers in the United
States. Today, there are more than 50. To remain competitive,
she said, Beau Ties keeps its prices in the $45 to $49 range,
though some higher-end ties cost as much as $75.
Beau Ties is unique in another respect, Smith added: It
accepts old neckties from customers who want them converted
into bow ties. Such ``one-off'' special orders are yet
another way to maintain customer loyalty.
``Some guys will send in a hundred of them,'' Smith added.
``We make an awful lot of custom ties here.''
Like other industries, Beau Ties enjoys great benefits and
faces challenges from being in the Green Mountain State. Its
location far from its customer base increases the cost of
shipping. For years, the company printed its catalogs on the
East Coast until, as Tall put it, distribution costs became
``exquisitely painful.''
At the same time, Tall noted, ``Vermont always has a
certain cachet, and we certainly play that up in every letter
we write.''
``The core of this place is the manufacturing,'' Smith
added. ``I don't mean to sound schmaltzy, but I'm the one who
goes out into the world to sell this stuff, and I'm always so
proud. I never have a product that I don't think is amazing.
And how fortunate am I? I get to see it get made every day.''

(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered
to be printed in the Record.)

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