Incredibly, this blog has somehow overlooked the Great Tie Debate which is engulfing the nation, following the shock news that sneering Paxo and sanctimonious Snow have abandoned neckwear. Snow even goes so far as to state a preference for 'Iranaian collarless shirts, which can be rather beautiful'. Ugh. Oddly, I have no very strong opinion on ties - I tend to wear them at work in the cooler seasons, and prefer a narrow cut and classic patterns along paisley lines (eBay does some amazing bargains in vintage ties). Larky ties - like larky socks (see Bryan's timely post on the Dimbleby clown socks) - are of course out of the question. Surely the tie should be defended - like so much else - precisely because it is pointless and complicated; it thereby enriches the semiotic soup in which we swim. Anyway, whenever people have dressed 'rationally' - as various cranks in the 20s did, and as people in sci-fi movies tend to do - they look like prats.
On a related matter, here's a sartorial ponder point: The cravat - is it too late?
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
As one of the few professional tie wearers to visit this blog, I must say that my dicky bow is an attractive and popular form of neckwear. The ladies seem to love mine... Best worn without a shirt, though.
ReplyDeletewearing a tie, as i learnt at school, is tactically unsound - it's like wearing a noose around your neck, inviting random passers-by to throttle you.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it is true they can be used as tourniquets.
Michael Mann's films are instantly recognisable, as the heroes always wear grey suits with white shirts - no ties.
Regarding the cravat- it is too late. Genuine mutton-chop whiskers on the other hand are coming back.
ReplyDeleteThe cravat has definitely had it unless, of course, you are a BBC producer from the 1960s. My father had a phobia about tying his top shirt button when wearing a tie. He said it was linked to ancestral fears of the hangmans noose being tightened (due to sheep stealing back in Ireland). In which case, David Cameron's family must have a very questionable past.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to wear a suit, might as well wear a tie. I hope you noticed that the sartorially splendid (and fabulously talented) actor Bill Nighy is the last fellow quoted in the article. HE has decided to start wearing ties regularly. (Doubtless realized the suit thing I mentioned.) Anyway, as Bill says, the tie/cravat is all about adding color, peacocking up the dark greys and blues of the suit.
ReplyDeletePourquoi pas?
My understanding is that neckwear derives from the drawstrings on those rough old medieval undergarments. Does this mean that someone who wears neither tie nor cravat is also hinting that they like to go commando? Perhaps the new dispensation will give Paxo and co a special thrill on air: no tie, and nothing on at all under the table. I'd guess cravats are mostly seen these days at footballers' weddings (before the fighting starts, anyway) and perhaps in the fustier reaches of India and Pakistan, where noble old habits die a lot harder than they do here.
ReplyDeleteHas it ever been established that commandos don't wear underpants? And if so, can anybody explain why? Are there operational reasons?
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to defend the tie in order to keep work from taking over our lives. Changing out of the suit at the end of the day is the moment I can forget the job until morning. I seem to be the only person at work who resents dress down Friday.
ReplyDeleteapparently underwear causes insufferable chafing when you're yomping/tabing with a bergen, which only commando-types are likely to do, really. Their raging phallus power means they cannot be constrained by underwear, though i suppose perhaps silk ladies' knickers might be okay. i'm not about to pop down to Hereford to ask, though.
ReplyDeleteAgain, Elberry, I think I must draw attention to what I imagine must be some ideological collateral damage you've sustained from an unhealthy degree of saturating the entelechial structure that is your self-sustained imagined being in proto-feminist critiques of inter-gender emasculation literary texts.
ReplyDeleteif it needs defending it can't be cool.
ReplyDeleteAndrew wrote: "self-sustained imagined being in proto-feminist critiques of inter-gender emasculation literary texts."
ReplyDeleteNo, no, this will not do. Surely the whole point of bilateral co-extensive excursive meta-genetic whoroscopesectomic trochanteric bursitis/propagandist terminology is to recuper/mistrope the raging phallus power equation, which might otherwise be subsumed/resumed in a intra-species metanomy of imaginal pursuivance? Like in that film - you know, the one with Bruce Willis.
Or are you, at heart, a Lacanian?
Andrew and Elberry, shouldn't that kind of thing be done behind closed doors and with the curtains pulled?
ReplyDeleteAs for the tie, I agree with you, Susan. To wear a suit without a tie is a bit half-arsed. The tie adds to the formality of it, yet allows for just a hint of individuality. No bold statements, though. Keep it simple.
The cravat? I think not.
Tweed and a tie for me are a bit like Torvill and Dean.
ReplyDeleteIt is great to be a woman sometimes!
ReplyDeleteTies with suits, mos' def.. Aesthetics, plain and simple. Do you not agree that grainy black-and-white photographs of chaps in suits, ties, and wearing trilbies, speak of better things than the hideous grunge gear and trainers worn by today's grubby, don't-give-a-damn, majority?
ReplyDeleteEye spied: Jon Snow wearing one of his peacock-hued ties at the HarperCollins bash at the V&A last night.
What - not a 'rather beautiful' Iranian collarless shirt? Must have been someone else.
ReplyDelete