FASHION : TV’s Pat Sajak Ties On Bold, New Image

When you think about a wild and crazy kind of guy, Pat Sajak’s name simply doesn’t come to mind. Yet the late-night talk-show host has taken to wearing some wild and crazy ties on television.

“My wardrobe man believes ties should make a statement. And that statement is: ‘Hey, look at this tie!’ ” Sajak quips.

“He thinks I’m using the ties to send messages to my friends,” says Ivan Marquez, who has been Sajak’s dresser since 1986. “So he asks me, ‘Does this one mean, ‘Meet me at Raoul’s”?’ ”

The designs of Sajak’s ties, whether bold geometrics or abstract prints, are amazing to behold, ranging from flying saucers and strange squiggles to silly looking sailboats and polka-dots out of control.

Tapered at the neck and 4 inches wide in the body, the ties belong to the ‘40s retro silhouette now popular for men. And the colors being used in crazed combinations span the spectrum from electric blue and light avocado to mauve and aubergine--not to mention a weird orange somewhere between tangerine and terra cotta.

What Sajak has discovered is something men all over the country are only now beginning to realize: that for a modest investment of between $25 and $50 apiece, a new-look tie is a relatively cheap way to update their otherwise conservative wardrobes.

Widely Accepted

“I’ve carried unusual ties for seven years,” says Sherman Oaks menswear designer Rick Pallack, whose store supplies the clothes for “The Pat Sajak Show,” “but it’s just been in the past year that they have been widely accepted by attorneys or businessmen or even talk-show hosts.”

For Sajak, the bizarre ties give him an on-screen fashion look that’s different from Johnny, David or Arsenio. But whether that’s translatable into Nielsen ratings isn’t clear.

“We didn’t go into this thinking, ‘Well, if I wear a better tie, it’ll mean two ratings points,’ ” Sajak says. “We just decided to have a little bit of fun.”

“We wanted to give him his own individual style so he wouldn’t look like other talk-show hosts or how he did on ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ And, besides, unusual ties are very much in vogue these days,” Pallack says. “So we realized that since Pat is such a mainstream, Middle America-type person, it’s acceptable if he’s wearing them.”

Endless Queries

So acceptable, in fact, that Sajak says he now fields endless queries about his ties from guests and fans alike. And Pallack (who receives an end-of-the-show credit) claims to have received “hundreds” of letters from people asking where they can buy neckwear “just like Pat’s.”

If Sajak is indeed creating a “tie trend,” it simply points up yet again the power of television to affect every aspect of American life, including fashion.

From “Mod Squad’s” well-dressed hippies to “Dynasty’s” well-heeled richies, TV through the decades has affected and reflected clothing styles.

For instance, when Bill Cosby started wearing Missoni sweaters on his show, it gave permission to middle-aged fathers everywhere to abandon their boring one-color crew necks in favor of something bolder. And Carson still has a line of suits named after him.

As for Sajak, “let’s wait a few years and get the show off to a solid start,” he warns, “before we start talking about clothing lines.”

Sajak is the first to admit that “being a fashion plate is not how I make my living.” Even dresser Marquez notes that Sajak’s off-camera style is “very boring. He’s a jeans-and-sweater kind of guy who only wears suits when he has to.”

But Marquez persuaded Sajak to update his fashion look when his talk show debuted in January. And, because the producers had already decided that Sajak should wear conservative suits, “I decided to try to make a statement with the ties he wears,” Marquez notes.

Sajak too was interested in getting away from his humdrum fashion image on “Wheel of Fortune.” “So I said to Ivan: ‘I’ll go a little bit left of center and let you have your way with my ties.’

“Little did I know . . . .”

Marquez, together with Pallack, who supplies clothes for Bert Convy on “Win, Lose or Draw” and Steve Edwards on “A.M. Los Angeles” among others, went through the store’s stock of nearly 10,000 different ties. They ended up choosing neckwear from Pallack’s private label as well as a Japanese firm known as Format.

At first, Sajak balked at his dresser’s choice of neckwear when he saw their funny-looking designs in shades of fudge and fuchsia, Marquez recalls.

“Finally, I said: ‘You’re paying me to do your wardrobe, so the least you can do is just shut up and wear it.’ ”

But Sajak maintains there still are some ties he won’t wear--ever.

“Every now and then, Ivan will walk in with a really weird one and I’ll say: ‘I ain’t going out there in that. My mother may be watching.’ ”