My tie collection is approaching eighty. Some people collect baseball cards, coffee mugs or anything associated with unicorns. Why am I seemingly obsessed with a piece of cloth designed to constrict the air flow to your lungs? Let's start with a little history.
A fascination with neckwear raged through France in the 1660s. It seems that Louis IV had hired a bunch of Croatian mercenaries to fight in the 30 years war. These dudes wore a piece of cloth around their necks to compliment their uniforms. Louis dug the look, and soon, if you were anybody in the orbit of Louis "The Sun King," you were sporting a colorful "cravat." This little ditty kept the silk merchants very busy. Over the next two hundred years, various styles of silk cravats were a big winner for most of the European middle and upper classes. Just watch a couple of Jane Austin's adaptations on Masterpiece Theater, such as Pride and Prejudice, and you'll get the drift.
We had to wait until the Roaring 20s for the modern necktie to take off. Some New York clothier named Jessie Langsdorf put together a tie which "bounced back" to its original shape after each use. Simple concept, big improvement. Ties were de rigueur for business attire. Even the seven mugs who were killed in the St. Valentine's massacre were wearing ties. Got to represent the mob with class.
Over the ensuing years, ties went from fat to skinny, back to an average size of 3.25-3.5 inches. Fat ties in the thirties and forties were also shorter and very colorful. If you watch some of the old film noir detective movies, the ties stop at about the belly button. Talk about flapping in the breeze. The fifties and early sixties ushered in the skinny tie most favored by rockers such as the Beetles and Buddy Holly. Black was the preferred color. Excitement in the music, not the neckwear. By the mid sixties, the counter-culture pretty much killed the traditional tie for all but the business world. Even then, you could wear a Nehru jacket when pitching real estate investments. Today ties tend to be reserved for formal occasions but are still a staple for corporate office wear. Bold colors, varied fabrics and differing price points keep ties relevant to a select clientele. However, don't wear a neck tie in Iran where it is seen as a decadent symbol of European oppression. Blame the Croatians.
How do you knot a tie? When I first heard the term "necktie party" I imagined a bunch of guys sitting around yucking it up while tying various knots such as the four in hand, the half and full Windsor or the Shelby knot. I didn't realize the necktie party involved nefarious intentions and the branch of a tree. I favor the fairly simple four in hand knot because I can do it without also twisting my fingers into knots.
There are two subspecies that need mentioning: the bow tie and the clip-on. The bow tie is most associated with scientists, engineers and those ensconced in nerd central. Bill Nye the science guy is a favored practitioner. There is a picture of me and my parents in 1962. My mother is wearing a pillbox Jackie Kennedy hat. My dad is wearing a skinny tie. I am wearing a red sports coat and a bright blue clip-on bow tie. Kids of that era almost all wore bow ties for formal occasions. Today, older kids still wear regular ties that are clip-ons. My sons had quite a few of them. Why knot when you can clip. Law enforcement also favor clip-ons. That way the perp can't strangle the officer but instead gets a handful of cloth and metal. However, as an adult, wear a clip-on in the professional business world and see how far that gets you.
My journey with neckties got a slow start. The late sixties and most of the seventies, I was in my hippie mode (with time out for serving Uncle Sam). I wore jeans, white shirts, and vests. Nary a necktie to be seen. However, in the early eighties, I decided to get on with life and ended up a college writing teacher. Still wore jeans and vests (I had over twenty) but began incorporating colorful eclectic ties into my wardrobe a couple of teaching days each week. I may have been a sartorial anomaly, but it kept those students guessing as to what crazy combination the prof would wear next. After I got right with Jesus and started attending church, I often wore a tie to the service. Hey, I was in God's house, and wearing ties was a sign of respect.
Now that I'm retired from teaching, I still find opportunities to wear some of those eighty ties. Will it be one celebrating the works of Van Gogh, Monet or Degas? Maybe a tie with birdhouses, tropical fish or hot air balloons? I could do stain glass windows or the raising of the American flag at Yorktown. Maybe the one with all the Beetles' albums on it. Can't wait for national tie day on October 18th. Gonna drape all those ties around my neck at once...