pic nicked from here
Aside from looking snappy, the common necktie is also a disease vector. But you can’t be too worried about disease. There’s probably people out there who are worth the AIDS you’ll catch by fucking them. I’m not sure I know any but I’m sure they exist. And anyway, scientists are working on the problem.
The conventional wisdom has it that neckties evolved from the cravat. This was a bright red piece of fabric worn about the neck by Croatian soldiers during the thirty year war. The fashion conscious French saw that, liked it and started wearing pieces of fabric around their own necks. It was called a cravat because that sounds like Croat.
It’s one of the first recorded cases of hipsters co-opting culture. Give it a few hundred years and perhaps the kaffiyeh will evolve into a necktie. But, by the time that happens, youngsters will probably be wearing the scarves popular with the warlike people of Alpha Centuri. And so it goes.
pic nicked from here
While I have no doubt that the French took a Croatian idea and used it, I do doubt that you can trace the necktie to any single event, person or culture. Not even to Shih Huang-ti and his Terrracotta army. Not to anywhere or anyone. For as long as men have had necks and fabrics, I’m sure that they’ve been wearing fabric around their necks. Probably fussing over the colours, knots and meanings all the time.
Trying to trace this history –or, as no one should ever call it, thistory– is like trying to figure out who was the first person to speak a language. It’s always going to be culturally chauvinistic and, at the end of the day, one just has to accept that we had the means so we did it. The tie is simply a barometer of civilization. Neckties appear when you reach reach a certain level of development and vanish when you dip below it. Shih Huang Ti is replaced by Chairman Mao. One creates, the other destroys. And one does not wear a tie.
As such, the modern necktie is a product of blood and thunder. It belongs to our sleek new era of industrialized brutality and highway madness. The meticulous simplicity of Brummel’s cravat is replaced by the practicality of wage slaves. You need a tie but you need one that you can tie quickly, will stay fastened and says little. Who has time to tie three cravats a day? You have appointments, rent and a job.
Although I love neckties and feel uncomfortable without one, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the common counter-cultural view of the things: That they represent a leash, a noose or bondage. [I am, however, entirely unsympathetic to this man moron.] Yet I’m no hippie. My background in these matters is punk rock and those people will wear dog collars. Besides all this, I believe that it’s good to be kept on a leash. As long as you decide on the leash.
Had I been born thirty years before I was, I might have rejected ties. But I was not born thirty years before I was. Unlike most people, I was actually born when I was. As our economy moves into the post-industrial, as the petit bourgeoisie wrestle to take the helm of a new information based money system, the tie has also changed in meaning.
No longer the drab badge of drab people, stamped out of factories with only slight differences, they’re available in a wide variety of designs, widths and fabrics. Even fashion has been unable to to enforce its typically inane claims about this year’s preferred widths. Just as the bright tie asserted individuality in the conformity-sickened war generation, today’s tie, no matter its style, proclaims individualism.
Unless your boss is forcing you to wear one to your obsolete job in some brick and mortar number crunching factory, today the mere act of wearing any tie makes a statement about your taste, thoughts and the value you place on them.
The modern incarnation of the tie, like the internet once was, is basically ungovernable. There are very few rules of import. People can wear the tie with no shirt at all, tie it however they like and go skinny or fat.
Yet, there are certain principles that I, at least, try to adhere too.
The first is one of contrast. The nineties saw a really unfortunate trend. Men cast aside all wisdom of their elders and started matching their tie to their shirt. Not contrasting or harmonizing it. Matching it. If they wore a purple shirt, they wore a purple tie. This looks disgusting. It looks as if the shirt has swallowed the tie and, finding it disagreeable, has vomited it back up. Should you find yourself doing this, I recommend an eye check.
Some people are colour blind and have no idea.
pic nicked from here
I also dislike ties that have any literary content. By this, I don’t just mean ties with words, though those obviously qualify. I mean ties with pictures of boats, golf clubs or cartoons. Anything that would make you think, upon gazing upon it: “This fellow likes to do ——-” or “This fellow is a fan of Tweety Bird.” Though some people love these ties, directly referencing your mind is crude. It’s as vulgar as publicly reading a book.
People have this bizarre fascination with appearing smart rather than being smart. Instead of acting upon their intelligence and doing the smart thing, they would much rather tell people what things they know. Having gained some sense of history, many would prefer to tell you a bunch of dates or, even worse, reflect upon“what history has taught us.” They’d be better off applying their knowledge in pursuance of their goals while keeping both hidden.
Dogmatic accuracy and crude truth are overrated. They rate the past above the future.
There is a time and a place to exchange personal information. It’s called your cufflinks. This is permissible because your cuffs are semi-private. The tie is not a billboard for your hobbies. And your hobbies are not a billboard for your personality. It’s much better to show that you can contrast colours and harmonize patterns than to show your love of yachts. Not only is it more subtle, it also speaks to the quality of your mind.
Anything else is just completely provincial.
