Beau Ties of Vermont is tucked away on a quiet road off Route 7 a couple miles out of Middlebury, where it originally served as a store for ties. Over the last 31 years, however, the small company has expanded its selection to include both men’s and women’s accessories, offering customers everything from cravats and shawls to tote bags.
“Generally, a lot of people haven’t even heard of the company. But once they know, they’re like ‘Oh, I have to send so-and-so over, they always wear bow ties,’” said Nikki Quesnel, co-manager of the store.
Beau Ties’ focus is producing a high quality product that is customizable to every customer. Every product is made to order on-site, and every customer can make the product their own.
Many customers will use this option to imbue individual significance on their accessories. Touches like wedding date monograms or initials are common, but sometimes Beau Ties receives orders with more personal stories.
“We’ve had people come in and say that their father died and he only wore neckties, but they wear bow ties, and we’ll make them all into bow ties,” Quesnel said.
“Someone once sent us his mother’s favorite dress and we made ties out of her dress,” added Susan Heinkoff, the other co-manager of the store. “That’s one of the great parts about being a custom shop.”
Customers can send in any fabric they might come across — even, as Heinkoff recalled, brand new boxer shorts — because every product created by Beau Ties is handmade using sewing machines.
“A lot of companies do die cuts so that they can cut multiple items at a time. I’m standing here literally cutting one piece at a time for our ties. Even if I [stack fabric] in layers, it’s still handmade,” Heinkoff said.
This process means that the production team works very closely together, as each product is passed from person to person through the necessary steps.
“We try to keep a culture of teamwork, which sounds cliché, but it’s really not, in our company. Because we’re so small, people wear a lot of different hats,” said company owner Greg Shugar.
Shugar, a Florida resident, purchased Beau Ties in 2019. He travels to Vermont every four to six weeks, relying on a business strategy that requires a lot of trust between not only him and the team but amongst the team itself.
“They push back on me when they need to, and that’s great. I told them on day one, ‘I’m not the king around here. I don’t know everything. I’m going to be wrong, and I'm going to say things you might not like, and you need to tell me those things.’ So we keep that culture,” Shugar said.
Heinkoff described the company as having a fun, laid-back atmosphere, something immediately evident to anyone who enters the production room. Jokes and conversations are heard being thrown between the different stations, and there is always a dog or two around.
“They call us Ernie and Bert because we’re the troublemakers around here," joked one store employee Carol Martin, pointing to the tape on the floor by both her and fellow employee Karen Marshall's workstations that are labeled with their respective names.
"Most of us have been together long enough that I see them more often than I see my siblings," Quesnel said, adding that she had just spent the weekend together with Heinkoff outside of work.
None of this would be possible without the individual passion of each staff member for their work. Many of them will make suggestions about how to improve and grow the company, and Shugar said that several of the products are the "brainchildren" of his employees, such as the kippahs and women's products that they now make.
“For me, what stands out is that they’re homemade and that we really care about what we put out," employee Valerie Mayhew, another long-time member of the store now in her 27th year of working at Beau Ties.
"We’re made in Vermont, [by] local Vermonters. I think it’s a fun thing to come see in person the production room, see how a bow tie is made and look at the things we sell,” Shugar said. "We just sell so many products now, and there’s something for everyone.”
