Neck Ties with a Wind Theme

Over the years I’ve collected several neck ties with a wind turbine or windmill theme. They got a lot of use when I was campaigning for feed-in tariffs around the world. Now they’re just gathering dust in the closet.

The most interesting is the tie I first saw on FESA’s Josef Pesch in Berlin a few years ago. Yes, Pesch is the man behind the famous German windmill tie. Well I wanted to know how I could get one and he took his off and gave it to me on the spot. “That’s a man who knows how to get things done,” I thought. That’s the tie that was worn not only by community wind activists across Germany but also by Canadian politicians, most notably Prince Edward Island’s former Minister of Energy Jamie Ballem. That tie has been everywhere with me.

This tie was handmade in Germany’s Schwarzwald or Blackforest by Fischer of Schweighausen.

See Dueling Wind Ties in Woodstock

The wind turbines on some ties are more in your face than others. The tie on the right below by Cyberoptix Tie Lab is one of the more direct. They offer two versions on the wind theme: Wind Farm Print Tie and Wind Turbine Silk Necktie. They also market scarves with wind turbine prints. Cyberoptix ties are handmade in the USA.

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Other ties are more subtle. The tie on the left was woven and manufactured in Australia for the Australian Wind Energy Association. I came by this tie when I was the keynote speaker for the annual conference of AusWEA sometime in the 90s.

The tie second from left was produced for Germany’s Bundesverband WindEnergie (the German wind turbine owners association). The label doesn’t say where it was made.

The third tie from the left was produced for Danish company Vestas. I came across this tie on a Vestas representative in South America and like the Josef Pesch story above, the Vestas rep gave me the tie on the spot.