For a very long time, men were accused of wearing uniforms to work; those were the days when great sartorial decisions came down to: will it be a blue suit or a gray suit today? That has changed with business casual, of course, leading to a revised question: will it be the khakis today or corduroys? That is why now, more than ever, the necktie is so important. Because the necktie is about the only thing a man wears that does not have a protective function, it is only discretionary item that a man can wear in the course of an ordinary day. Which is to say, the necktie is about the only thing that a guy can put on purely for styIe—to show a little bit of what he is about.
I have a brother who works in finance out of an office in the Palm Beach area, where wearing neckties is truly optional. On his last visit with me in New York, he had to borrow one in order to get through his Manhattan meeting schedule. He made off with a lovely yellow and blue striped piece from Peter Elliot (my neighborhood menswear boutique), and of course he promised to give it back. Now he says it is his favorite tie and he wears it often—or whatever passes for often in Palm Beach. For all I know, it is the only one in his closet that does not have Mickey Mouse on it. When am I getting my tie back? When it needs a cleaning, I suppose.
Credit: Alan Behr
Related Post: A Meditation on the Necktie II
