Bill Kennerson's Beau Ties

Vermont Business Magazine, Aug 01, 2004 by Marcel, Joyce

Bow ties can salute Grace Kelly, the Rappahannock River in Virginia, the Mad River in Vermont, and the port city of Natchez. They can salute Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Woodstock and the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." They can celebrate the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, the Chicago Cubs, and in the fall, the New England Patriots. They can celebrate mermaids, jackrabbits, and Kalahari Park. Patriotic ones can celebrate the Stars and Stripes and 4th of July barbecues. Printed with tiny red lobsters (and an occasional tan scallop) on a navy silk twill background, they can celebrate a good shore dinner.

And don't forget formal wear.

These kinds of ties - and many more come from Beau Ties, Ltd. of Middlebury, the largest bow tie manufacturer in the country. Through its catalogs, the company sells between 45,000 and 50,000 bow ties every year in the U.S., Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Essentially, a bow tie is just a small amount of fabric that you tie in a bow - as you would tie a shoelace, only around your neck. They come in three styles: the butterfly, or jumbo, which is 3 1/2 inches high; the slim fine, or standard, which is 2 1/2 inches high-, and the very slim, which is a straight cut, 1 1/2 inches high.

So how can a small piece of textile have so much wit and whimsy? One of the people responsible is Bill Kenerson, 73, a long-time bow tie aficionado, a Yale man, a rock-ribbed Republican, a personnel director for industry, Vermont's Commissioner of Economic Development under governors Richard Snelling and Howard Dean, and executive director of the Addison County Regional Economic Development Corp.

Kennerson, tall and freckled and dignified, has thinning white hair and a reserved manner that hides a wickedly wry sense of humor.

Lawrence Miller, founder and former owner of Otter Creek Brewing, sits on the Beau Ties board of advisers. He calls Beau Ties "a fun business."

"Bill really believes in it," Miller said. "He's got a great deal in common with his customers. He's always the best-dressed person at the board meetings, and he's got a mission to improve the dress code of American business. I think 'casual Friday' was a relatively hard thing for Bill to adapt to. Bow tie wearers have an independent sense of themselves, and Bill has a very independent sense of himself. He does what he believes is appropriate and correct, and it's really refreshing."

At Beau Ties, Kenerson is aided and abetted by his attorney wife, Deborah B Venman, 63. Together, the couple has turned what started out as a small home retirement business into a $2 million company that shows double digit growth every year and employs 27 people, including a few part-timers.

Beau Ties' first catalog, in 1993, featured eight ties, including a paisley called "Boston." Now, the company has a mailing list of 70,000 names, produces nine catalogs a year, and features about 124 styles - (over 20 new styles in each catalog. But it still includes the same paisley named "Boston." The company also makes bow ties for children (a bright green and blue one is called "Nemo"), pocket handkerchiefs, vests, cummerbunds and ladies scarves. Another business, in Perth Amboy, NJ, makes Oxford shirts.

The ties generally sell for between $25 and $35. Another line, Bill's Private Stock, uses more expensive fabric.

"We expect that only the most discriminating bow tie wearers will truly appreciate the unique patterns and incomparable quality of Bill's Private Stock," Kenerson writes for the fine's promotional material.

At the company's 6,000-square-foot factory and office, tucked away in a quiet corner of a Middlebury industrial park, there is a small showroom and retail outlet which is visited by bow ties lovers from all over the world.

"The funny thing is, people kind of think this is on the way to somewhere," Kenerson said. "And you know it's not on the way to anywhere. People will be going from Georgia to Maine, and they'll come by Middlebury so they can stop in."

Looking over the comments in the guest book, the word you see most often is "Thanks."

"Thank you for making such beautiful bow ties," writes a doctor from Boston. "A satisfied customer," writes a man from Springfield, MA. Four people from England rave about the ties. Every catalog is full of testimonials and photographs of bow-tied customers. The cover of the Summer 2004 issue features a picture of catalog photographer Todd Balfour and his two sons in bow ties. Inside, there's a picture of two old friends in bow ties, and another with a proud grandfather holding his first grandchild - both wearing bow ties, of course.

"People send us incredible pictures of their weddings and children and grandchildren," said Mary Murphy, who writes the copy for the catalogs and is a long time friend of Venman and Kenerson; her late husband was the justice of the peace who married the couple in 1988. "Nothing is solicited. It's fun knowing you're pleasing people, along with selling such a great product."