Have neckties come undone?

Tag : mens neckties

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NEW YORK (AP) – They were the best of ties. They were the worst of ties.
Skinny little beatnik ties and mod doublewide ties. Suave andsophisticated Frank Sinatra ties and greedy Gordon Gekko powerties. Bar Mitzvah boy clip–on ties and Jerry Garciatrippin’ ties.
And, of course, all those closet doors decked with millions ofgifted ties.
But now, comes word that the necktie – that elongated swatchof silk or polyester or rayon whose donning has long marked a malerite of passage while serving no discernible utility – may befading into the fashion sunset.
The recent decision by the Men’s Dress FurnishingsAssociation – the trade group for America’s neckwearmakers – to shut down has some folks tied up in knots. Acalendar crammed with casual Fridays (and Mondays and Thursdays...) has exacted its last, grim toll, some said.
In an age where some people show up for job interviews inflip–flops, the imminent death of the tie seems plausible.
It’s been a good, long time, after all, since America was anation of necktie–wearers.
Look back at pictures from the Great Depression and you’llsee men who put on ties before taking their place on soup lines.The stands at baseball games were once filled with men in ties– even on weekends. In the years after World War II, whenemployers created thousands of new office jobs, the sidewalks ofdowntowns across the country were thronged by men whose necks werecloaked in soldierly stripes and solids.
But before we deliver the eulogy for the necktie, consider this:
Men have been wrapping and winding pieces of cloth around theirnecks for hundreds of years. It’s clear that the tie, oncethe very symbol of the male establishment, is far from the icon itused to be.
Still, there’s small comfort for neckwear makers: At leastthey’re not selling fedoras.
And, given the fickleness of fashion and the fact that someoccasions still demand a tie, it’s probably too soon to writeits epitaph.
’’You almost want to say, ’poor necktie,’so abused and underappreciated,’’ says Candace Corlett,president of the consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail.
Predictions of the necktie’s demise have been circulating foryears. In the mid–1990s, designer Gianni Versace offered hisvision of male fashion in a coffee–table book titled’’Men Without Ties,’’ a sure sign of wherethings were headed. A bronzed Adonis dashed across its coverdressed in nothing but a few ties, lashed loosely around his waist.
The burgeoning popularity of casual Fridays turned khakis and opencollar–shirts into suitable wear for workplaces previouslybetter suited to suits. The dot–com boom filled thousands ofinstant offices with laid–back twentysomethings who saw nopoint in lashing something tight around their necks.
But rumors of the tie’s death are roughly equivalent to thelongtime predictions that the computer would soon turn societypaperless. There’s a lot of truth to the prognostication, butsomehow it hasn’t quite turned out that way.
Clearly, the tie business is nothing like the old days. In theearly 1970s, when sales peaked, manufacturers sold between 200million and 250 million ties a year in the U.S. Today annual saleshave dropped to about 50 million, according to Lee Terrill,president of the neckwear division of Phillips–Van HeusenCorp., the nation’s largest tie maker.
A Gallup poll last year found just 6 percent of men wearingneckties to work each day, down from 10 percent in 2002. More thantwo–thirds of the men surveyed said they never wear a tie towork, up from 59 percent five years earlier.
But the necktie still has its defenders and devotees, men whoinvest the kind of affection in their ties that a golf shirt willprobably never know.
’’A lot of people call me the Tie Guy,’’says Bob Smith, the outgoing provost and vice chancellor ofacademic affairs at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville,Arkansas.
Smith has a collection of more than 400 ties in his closets. Theyare vital accessories in a job requiring him to deliver manyspeeches and presentations – more than 700 in the past eightyears. Every Smith speech is punctuated with a tie themed to thesubject.
A tie with a giraffe on it for a speech about the qualities thatmake a good supervisor, one who is able to raise his head above thefracas to see the landscape clearly. Another featuring a paintingby Charles Rennie Mackintosh of a rose inside a teardrop that hesaves for delivering eulogies.
’’When I walk into a room, they’ll look at mynecktie, they’ll actually pick it up when I walk in, and say’Oh, what are you going to talk about today? and I’llsay, ’Oh, wait and see.’ It actually creates a sense ofmystery,’’ Smith says.
Smith’s collection, though, pales compared to the more than1,000 ties owned by Richard Arutunian, a retired SouthernCalifornia neckwear manufacturer.
Arutunian rejects this talk that the tie has come undone. A tie issingularly irreplaceable, he says, uniquely capable of sending amessage about its wearer to women and to his fellow men.
’’To me it tells more about the person than even theshoe does,’’ says Arutunian, who long served asofficial tie historian for the neckwear industryassociation’s predecessor. ’’Is he trying toimpress me? Is he wearing a tie because he has to wear that tie?How is he tying that knot?’’
Wearing cloth around the neck stretches back a long way. Some tracethe modern tie to the early 1600s when Croatian fighters loopedfabric around their necks before battle, captivating thepublic’s imagination.
Hard to believe, but for most of history men were the peacocks ofthe fashion world, and that included draping their necks in allsorts of status symbols, from waterfall cloths to cravats, saysPaula Baxter, who curated an exhibit that closed last year at theNew York Public Library on the rakish history of men’s wear.
’’Even the Puritans. They would wear lacecollars,’’ she says.
The era of the male dandy ended in the late 19th century, when theuniformity of the tailored suit took over. In the early 1920s,neckwear makers began cutting cloth on the bias – diagonally,at an angle to the weave – and the modern tie was born. Itfound a welcome home on the necks of the expanding ranks ofwhite–collar workers.
By the 1960s, 600 companies made ties in the U.S., mostly smaller,regional manufacturers. They banded together in a professionalassociation that lobbied on their behalf.
Those days are long past.
’’The number you have dialed is not in service at thistime,’’ a recording greeted callers to the New Yorkoffices of the Dress Furnishings Association this week.’’Please check the area code and number and dial yourcall again.’’
Don’t bother.
Today there are only about two dozen companies making ties in theU.S., and the business is dominated by huge firms. Many of the tiesAmerican men wear are made overseas. It didn’t seem to makeany sense to keep running an association built for an industry sofundamentally different from what it used to be, says Terrill, theneckwear business executive and a member of the association’sboard.
’’We didn’t think anybody wouldnotice,’’ he says, of the decision to close.
Instead, the association’s closure has been greeted asconfirmation that the tie is done.
The suggestion alarms Terrill, who says that sales have steadiedand ties are poised to make a modest comeback.
There are still a few islands of tie–wearers. Lawyers andfolks in finance and insurance work in offices where suits and tieremain the badges of professionalism.
’’When you wear a tie it still says ... you’redressed for the occasion,’’ says Amy Klaris, a retailstrategist at consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates.
Today, with the economy softening, men need to market themselvesand a big part of that is the way they dress. That will send thependulum swinging, albeit subtly, back to the suit and tie, Terrillsays.
In the past 10 or 15 years, as dress codes loosened, menwho’d always worn ties ’’were making a statement.I’m not going to wear a tie because I don’t have towear a tie,’’ Terrill says. ’’But now somany people don’t wear a tie, that it’s a statement towear one.’’
That sounds like wishful thinking to Corlett, the consultant. Sheagrees that sales of ties have leveled off, but a comeback isunlikely.
’’I think it’s about as untrue as women returningto hosiery. Once you free the body of the tie and the hose, yeah,you may go back to it occasionally to make a statement or ondress–up day, but nobody willingly goes back to wearing a tiefive days a week,’’ she says.
For those waiting to see if men will once again embrace theconstriction that comes with ties, she suggests looking to examplesin women’s fashion.
’’You know,’’ she says,’’corsets never came back.’’