View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Local artist designs 'Fredericksburg' bow tie

Local woman's design becomes a bow tie dubbed the 'Fredericksburg'

By LISA CHINN

Date published: 6/7/2004

ARILYNN MENDELL never knotted a bow tie around her own neck. But that didn't stop her from designing one.

"One day, I just thought, 'Heck, I can paint bow ties,'" said Mendell, who lives on the bank of the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg.

The water inspired her to paint a white tie with light and dark blue stripes. And before she knew it, Beau Ties Ltd. of Vermont had turned her watercolor vision into a proper gentleman's accessory.

"We have converted her design to printed fabric," Bill Kenerson, who co-owns the mail-order company with his wife, Deb Venman, writes in their summer catalogue. "Thanks to Marilynn for her fine work."

The couple, who began their bow-tie business in 1993, dubbed Mendell's design the "Fredericksburg." It's pictured on the front cover of the new catalogue, which offers four fresh patterns. Mendell's is the only one featured full-size inside the front flap.

"It's a nice, poppy design," Kenerson said in a telephone interview from Vermont. "Those are great summer colors."

The silk-twill bow tie sells for $35. But that's beside the point for Mendell, 56, who grew up moving around the world with a businessman dad who rarely donned traditional ties.

"I really wanted ties that reminded me of my father," she said.

In addition to her dad, she has three grown sons and a significant other to buy for. All those men in her life meant Mendell was giving Beau Ties Ltd. a bonanza of business.

The company, based in Middlebury, Vt., sells bow ties in plenty of patterns, including a plethora of polka dots and paisley prints, and assorted stripes that run this way and that.

The charming chokers are loaded with little lobsters and be-decked with itty-bitty barbecue grills. Others are garnished with golf balls or saturated with cigars, martinis, even Volkswagens.

But Mendell had designs of her own when she created the "Fredericksburg."

"This tie reminds me of sort of sitting at the yacht club at the end of a summer day with a sunburn, just after a shower," said Mendell, who also pictures herself sipping a gin and tonic.

She painted the design in watercolors on her way to work as director of business development for the architectural marketing firm Sorg and Associates in Washington.

Follow us on

Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 6/7/2004