Christmas gifts 7: Hand painted ties (and more cufflinks)

I was reading about ties in the Times a few weeks back - in the Luxx section, which they helpfully don't put on the Web. One of the designers highlighted was Victoria Richards, who makes at least some of the ones Jon Snow wears on Channel 4 News. She came out with some of the best tie advice I've ever heard other than don't wear bright colours to a funeral, which is that Snow - who's well known for bright ties - can get away with much louder ones than the rest of us because he's on telly and also because he's only on our screens for 45 minutes. This makes a lot of sense and is the reason you won't see me in anything like the example on the right here - but I certainly bought a couple from her over the weekend. If you have a look at her website do check Momo from the hand painted range - it goes well in all but the most formal meetings and it's distinctive enough to be a little different from anything else you're likely to see around people's necks. The ties are good quality, and although they're not cheap something individual and hand made for £60 sounds a pretty fair cost to me. When we visited her workshop she also had some excellent scarves for the female market, which took care of a Christmas present from me in no time. These aren't on her site yet so presumably it's evolving; I shall certainly be visiting it often during 2012 to see what's new.

P. S. Speaking of things that look good on shirts, I've been reminded that in my rush to tell everyone about the killer cufflinks yesterday I overlooked another set I'd seen and intended to tell everyone about. And deservedly so - the £60 sets from Welsh stained glass specialist GWYDR are very appealing and I can well imagine adding some to my ever-expanding Christmas wants list. Not that I know many people who'd fancy spending sixty quid on me, but if you don't ask...

In case you're wondering I'm not affiliated with either of these craftspeople - I get literally nothing if you buy them, click through to their sites, whatever. The only ad revenue I get from this site is from click throughs to the Google-fed ads on the left of the screen.