Essay on the necktie.
I broke the shackles 18 months ago. I wasn’t easy. Old habits die hard and this was indeed an old one. As a resident, it was bow ties. Then as a consultant, I alternated between Brooks Brothers and McGill school ties….”the orthopedic school of dressing”, my wife would call it. In the end, my taste had evolved to expensive Canali or Boss numbers. But wear them I did, day in and day out and this in spite of the fact that they were a pain in the ass to put on and added precious time to my morning ritual. Ties are uncomfortable, they need to match the outfit and they’re stain magnets. And ever get a tie dry-cleaned? It ruins the tie every time.
And so it was that I decided it was time to kick the habit. I stopped wearing a tie to work. In fact, I did my best to stop wearing ties altogether. Indeed, over the last 18 months, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn a tie. Oh, and by the way, that hand I’m doing the counting on is the very same one my wife twisted up behind my back to get me to wear a tie on those few occasions. Excluding black tie events and my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary, going tieless is becoming much more acceptable.
So why, you may be wondering, have I chosen to write about neckties now? Well, the reason is that I have come to a confluence of ideas, a synergy of memes. It just so happens that in the past couple of months, I’ve come across a few articles that give me the (maybe false) impression that I was ahead of the curve on this one. Here are a couple of examples. Earlier this month, a piece by Kathryn Hughes in the Guardian titled Uncool Under the Collar speaks about dramatic declines in tie purchases especially among professionals. You may want to read the whole article via the link above but I couldn’t help but include Ms. Hughes’ final two paragraphs:
“There is, finally, another very good reason for men to reject the symbolic freight of a tie. For while the necktie started off as a dandified bit of kit (as near as dammit to tucking a lace hanky into the top of your shirt), from Victorian times onwards it became austerely and dominatingly male. As a result, any woman wearing a tie in the 20th century was either very obviously in drag for her own pleasure or was being forced to send a slightly humiliating signal to the world that she wished to be viewed as a neuter (it's for that reason, surely, that disturbingly luscious adolescent girls are still obliged to wear a tie to school).
In these metrosexual days, however, for a man to insist on wearing a tie does not speak of a casual and unforced masculinity, but suggests instead a nagging worry about where the proper markers lie. For, viewed against a crisp white shirt, the classic dark tie forms an urgent pointing finger, dragging the viewer's eye straight towards the wearer's genitals. "Look," the tie seems to shout, like an embarrassing drunk in the pub, "there's no doubt about it, he's definitely all man."”
And consider this from the Telegraph that begins:
“Until today, it was fairly safe to assume that a grubby tie was the sign of a slob, not an assassin.
How wrong we were. A liberally stained tie is not only the epitome of sloth, it is a lethal weapon, too, a germ warfare laboratory of terrifying capabilities.
Wear a dirty tie and you become a killer, was the suggestion yesterday from the British Medical Association, which is urging doctors to abandon neckwear.”
Now, I’ll admit this is a bit of an exaggeration. However, the writer is correct that the British Medical Association has recommended that doctors abandon the tie. The tie is one of the only pieces of cloth that in the health care setting does not get cleaned regularly. When’s the last time you sent a tie out for dry cleaning? See? When you consider that doctors, especially surgeons, come into contact with patients, some with open wounds, on a daily basis, you realize that you might be getting a culture swab from each of them….WITH YOUR TIE. I had a chat about this with our infection control people who tell me that ties AND white lab coats are currently under careful scrutiny by infection control committees around the world. Makes sense to me.
Call me a bellwether of fashion. Call me metrosexual. Or don’t call me at all! But, I suspect the tie may be on its way out and I for one will not mourn its loss.
Joseph Froncioni
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