Exorcising the ubiquitous necktie

From It's in. It's out. At last, your guide to necktie etiquette:

...In some places (church, restaurants, college) the tie seems to be vanishing alongside the polar ice caps (if you believe Al Gore). Sightings can be especially rare during the hot summer months. But in other places (law offices, stock brokerages, hospitals) ties are reappearing faster than Whac-A-Mole on steroids. "Ties are both coming back and going out at the same time," says Gerald Andersen, executive director of the Men's Dress Furnishings Association in New York. The changes are both real (not imagined) and modified by regional differences (up generally in the Midwest and East; down, for the most part, in the West), he and others say. The personal whims of revolving CEOs can also figure in – no matter what profession.

"Both perceptions are correct," Mr. Andersen says. But with a kind of defiance to those of the now-defunct dotcom era who had all but deep-sixed the necktie in favor of T-shirts, beards, shorts, and sandals, he paraphrases Mark Twain: "The reports of the death of the necktie have been greatly exaggerated."

Of course a guy from the Men's Dress Furnishings Association would say that, some might think. But he's got stats showing where the prediction came from and where it went. The glory days of the tie were in the early '90s, when men, and the women who shop for them, racked up a record $1.3 billion in US necktie sales. But they dipped to half that ($750 million) just a half decade later. That was when "casual Friday" became the mantra, when the nerd-geniuses of Silicon Valley made it a status symbol to thumb their noses at US workplace convention...


From Necktie Down the Ages - History of the most common gift of gratitude to Dad:

Many events in the history of mankind eventually fade into oblivion, but others, leave their indelible marks for the entire world to see. More than 350 years ago, the Croats initiated one such influential occurrence. Although started in the 17th century in a small region on the Adriatic coast, the consequences of this event are still very much evident the world over. 600 million people now wear the ubiquitous symbol of Croatia around their necks, close to their hearts.

Believe it or not Croatia is the mother country of the modern necktie but archaeological evidence of the use of neckties goes back to the Chinese and the Romans almost two millenniums back.

China's First emperor.

The earliest known version of the necktie has been found in the massive mausoleum of China's first emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who was buried in 210 B.C. Desperately afraid of death, the emperor wanted to slaughter an entire to army to accompany him into the next world. His advisers ultimately persuaded him to take life-size replicas of the soldiers instead...


From The Necktie:

...Why have human men for thousands of years (that we can document) gotten into the habit of wearing these highly stylized choke collars?

Since "the rectangular piece of cloth that was tied and hung down till the shoulders was a very important part of an Egyptian's clothing because it was showing his social status." , I wonder... Did the slaves in the fields and mines wear the rope neckties and the "house slaves" wear more adorned choke collars that were more aesthetically pleasing in the master's home? And, to indicate to the other slaves that "I'm special! I'm a house slave!"? Is this why the so-called professional classes wear neckties? Is the necktie an artifact on an earlier time when man was enslaved and groveled for enhanced status? (Sort of like today?) Were the "masters" human... or, were they "YOU-KNOW-WHAT!"?

I was friends with a former policeman who claimed that the clip-on necktie was originally designed for police. That way, if an officer got into a physical altercation with someone and the tie was grabbed, it would just come off in the suspect's hand. But, still the police use the symbol of the necktie rather than just eliminate it for safety's sake. Contemplate for a moment the symbolism of a human "law enforcer" wearing a necktie. Or, a CEO wearing a necktie. Or, the priest class wearing not a necktie, but still a collar.

A necktie/noose/choke collar is a very convenient way of cutting off both the blood to the brain and the air to the lungs to induce panic, and then maybe death. Very effective and immediate discipline! Or, perhaps an efficient way of mass processing human male slaves by attaching them to a chain or tying them to posts for processing or discipline...


From The death of the necktie?:

...As tech sales rep Earl Presley walked in downtown St. Petersburg on his way to a lunch meeting Wednesday, he was the portrait of a modern businessman.

Except around his neck, there hung no tie.

Presley's tie-less look, according to a recent Gallup Poll on workplace attire, has far and away become the most popular way to dress around the office. Nationwide, only 6 percent of men reported wearing a tie to work every day in 2007, down from 10 percent six years ago. Those who reported never wearing a tie to work increased from 59 percent to 67 percent over the same period.

To add injury to insult, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that after 60 years, the Men's Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group that represents American tiemakers, is expected to shut down Thursday. ..


From Iran fights national threat from neckties:

Iran is considering a new campaign to fend off the latest threat it has faced – men's ties.

"Imports of some apparel are not banned but serious action should be taken to stop the import of ties which contradict the nature of Iranian culture," Asghar Hamidi, the nation's customs bureau deputy head, told the Fars news agency.

An English report on the growing controversy was carried by Agence France-Presse.

"We need to change the country's import regulations to this end," the report quoted Hamidi saying. His responsibilities also include work on the Iranian state plan for the "development of culture, chastity and the veil."...


From Wikipedia:

Anti-necktie sentiment

In the early 20th century, the number of office workers began increasing. Many such men and women were required to wear neckties, because it was perceived as improving work attitudes, morale, and sales.

Removing the necktie as a social and sartorial business requirement (and sometimes forbidding it) is a modern trend often attributed to the rise of popular culture. Although it was common as everyday wear as late as 1966, over the years 1967–69, the necktie fell out of fashion almost everywhere, except where required. There was a resurgence in the 1980s, but in the 1990s, ties again fell out of favor, with many technology-based companies having casual dress requirements, including Microsoft, Genentech, Apple Inc., Amazon.com, Monsanto, eBay and in the 2000s, Google.

In North America, a phenomemon known as Casual Friday has arisen, in which employees were not required to wear ties on Fridays, and then — increasingly — on other, announced, special days. Some businesses extended casual-dress days to Thursday, and even Wednesday; others required neckties only on Monday (to start the work week). At the furniture company IKEA, neckties are not allowed.

In Israel casual-dress remains the everyday norm and the necktie is still largely shunned even by professionals like doctors and lawyers.[17] Interestingly, this practice may actually have practical, medical side-effects. A recent study found that tie-less Israeli doctors actually spread fewer germs than their foreign colleagues.[17]

An extreme example of anti-necktie sentiment is found in Iran, whose theocratic rulers have denounced the accessory as a decadent symbol of Western oppression. In the late 1970s (at the time of the Islamic Revolution) members of the US press even metonymized Iran's hardliners as turbans and its moderates as neckties. To date, most Iranian men have retained the Western-style long-sleeved collared shirt and three-piece suit, while excluding the necktie.[18][19]

Neckties are viewed by various sub- and counter-culture movements as being a symbol of submission and slavery (i.e. having a symbolic chain around one's neck) to the corrupt elite of society, as a "wage slave".[20]


From Prince Claus of the Netherlands:

...The public also sympathised with Claus for his efforts to give meaning to his life beyond the restrictions that Dutch law imposed on the Royal Family's freedom of speech and action (lest they get involved in political controversy). Many also believed that these restrictions were at least partly the cause of his severe depression, which lasted many years. As a result, restrictions were loosened; Claus was even appointed as senior staff member at the Department of Developing Aid, albeit in an advisory role.

A fine example of his mildly rebellious attitude toward protocol was the "Declaration of the Tie". In 1998, after presenting the annual Prince Claus Awards to three African fashion designers, Claus told "workers of all nations to unite and cast away the new shackles they have voluntarily cast upon themselves", meaning the necktie, that "snake around my neck," and encouraged the audience to "venture into open-collar paradise". He then removed his tie and threw it on the floor...


From TIE THAT BINDS; PRINCE FREEING NECKS OF DUTCH UNCLES, DADS:

With the simple tug of a tie, a Dutch prince has touched off a revolution in the Netherlands.

In a speech opening a show of African fashion, Prince Claus ceremoniously wriggled free of his Windsor knot, yanked off his navy blue necktie and tossed it rather inelegantly at the feet of his wife, Queen Beatrix.

"A snake around my neck,'' the 73-year-old prince snarled to a standing ovation.

Reporting the story that evening, one TV anchorman peeled off his tie. In solidarity, so did the sportscaster who gave the soccer scores. Now, a week later, Claus is a folk hero.

The phenomenon already has a name: "Claustrophilia,'' which celebrates the prince for denouncing ties.

"I also suffer from the prince's tie phobia Wouter van Winden, a businessman in the central city of Delft, was quoted as saying in Monday's De Volkskrant newspaper.

"No piece of clothing combines so little function with so much potential to show bad taste,'' he said. "For me, a necktie is like a dog leash: Both symbolize a limit on freedom. Why else does Nelson Mandela never wear one?''

Amen, says Claus, who proclaimed the South African president "the best-dressed man I know'' during Wednesday's fashion show at the royal palace in Amsterdam...


[ Aside: Exorcism Tie Designs ]